Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at how Canada might fare from hefty U.S. tariffs, heated competition in the artificial intelligence race, and U.S. President Donald Trump’s displacement plan for Gaza.
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A Metals Trade War
U.S. President Donald Trump announced on Sunday that Washington will impose 25 percent tariffs as early as Monday on all steel and aluminum imports coming into the United States.
The new tariffs are expected to fall especially hard on Canada, which is one of the United States’ main sources of imported steel and primary aluminum metal; Ottawa accounted for 79 percent of total U.S. aluminum imports from January to November 2024. “Canadian steel and aluminum support key sectors in the U.S., from defense to shipbuilding to auto,” Canadian Innovation Minister François-Philippe Champagne posted on X on Sunday, ahead of the expected announcement. “We will continue to defend Canada, our workers and our industries.”
Trump’s motives for imposing the tariffs remain murky. Although they will likely apply to steel and aluminum imports from all countries, the fact that Canada would bear the brunt of the pain has led some experts to think that they are part of an economic coercion strategy to force Canada to become part of the United States—an idea that many people, including Canadian officials, initially believed to be a joke when Trump first floated it but which they now think is a serious threat.
“I think Canada would be much better off being the 51st state because we lose $200 billion a year with Canada, and I’m not going to let that happen,” Trump said on Sunday, referring to the United States’ trade deficit with its northern neighbor. Canada is the United States’ largest trading partner in the world.
Upon taking office in January, Trump threatened 25 percent tariffs on all goods from Canada and Mexico, citing border security failures that he claims allowed undocumented migrants and drug traffickers to cross into the United States. Last week, though, Trump paused those duties for 30 days. “Trump’s future tariffs could turn out to be pure bluster, like most of his previous gambits,” FP’s Keith Johnson wrote at the time. “Or he may be determined to follow through on at least some of them.”
Such actions could already be in the works. Last Monday, Trump imposed 10 percent tariffs on Chinese goods, though he later delayed duties on small packages until U.S. customs officials can figure out how to implement them.
On Sunday, Trump added that further import duties will be issued later this week. Although the details remain unclear, these reciprocal tariffs will likely be imposed on products that come from economies—such as China’s, the European Union’s, and South Korea’s—that have levied duties on U.S. goods or imposed regulations on U.S. tech companies. “Very simply, if they charge us, we charge them,” Trump told reporters, adding that the reciprocal tariffs will go into effect “almost immediately.”
Financial markets and stock prices tumbled over the weekend due to the looming threat of reciprocal tariffs, and consumer sentiment reportedly declined last Friday as many U.S. citizens said they expect inflation to rise in the coming months; U.S. stocks rose again on Monday.
Higher taxes on U.S. businesses and consumers will also make it harder for builders, energy firms, carmakers, and aerospace companies to compete. “I think Europe is in for a massive trade war,” Robert O’Brien, Trump’s first-term national security advisor, told the Wall Street Journal. “I do not believe the president is going to put up with this type of action against America’s biggest companies.”
Today’s Most Read
The World This Week
Tuesday, Feb. 11: Trump hosts Jordanian King Abdullah II at the White House.
Wednesday, Feb. 12: European Council President António Costa and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen host Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in Brussels.
The Ukraine Defense Contact Group convenes in Brussels.
Thursday, Feb. 13: Trump hosts Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the White House.
NATO defense ministers convene in Brussels.
Friday, Feb. 14: The three-day Munich Security Conference begins in Germany.
Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown concludes his five-day trip to China.
Saturday, Feb. 15: Ethiopia hosts the two-day African Union leaders’ summit.
The separatist Georgian region of Abkhazia holds an early presidential election.
What We’re Following
Global AI summit. World leaders and tech executives convened in Paris on Monday to kick off the two-day Artificial Intelligence Action Summit, hosted by Modi and French President Emmanuel Macron. Among the VIPs in attendance are U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance, who plans to counter European efforts to tighten AI oversight; Chinese Vice Premier Zhang Guoqing, who arrives just weeks after the Chinese company DeepSeek unveiled its new, unprecedented AI-based chatbot; and senior tech moguls, including OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Microsoft President Brad Smith, and Google CEO Sundar Pichai.
The Trump administration hopes to demonstrate its AI ambitions at the summit with a pro-business approach that challenges China’s recent tech developments. At the same time, the European Union aims to use the summit to position itself as the leading force in AI investment and sustainability. “We should not be afraid of innovation,” Macron told local media.
But AI isn’t the only agenda item on attendees’ minds. “The main reason I’m going is actually to have some private conversations with the world leaders who are also going to be there,” Vance said, adding that he plans to discuss ways to end the Russia-Ukraine war before attending the Munich Security Conference later this week. This is Vance’s first foreign trip as vice president.
No right of return. Trump doubled down on his Gaza displacement proposal during a Fox News interview that aired on Monday. Palestinians would not be granted the right of return because “they’re going to have much better housing” elsewhere, Trump said. “In other words, I’m talking about building a permanent place for them.” On Sunday, he compared the territory to a “big real estate site” to reporters on Air Force One.
Trump first proposed that the United States take “long-term ownership” of Gaza and move the territory’s roughly 2.1 million Palestinians to neighboring countries, such as Egypt and Jordan, during a joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House last Tuesday. Both Egypt and Jordan have denounced Trump’s proposal, and on Sunday, Cairo said it would host an emergency Arab summit on Feb. 27 to discuss these “new and dangerous developments for the Palestinian cause.”
Jordanian King Abdullah II will head to Washington on Tuesday to meet with Trump, where the two are expected to discuss the potential consequences of his Gaza plan. Foreign leaders, rights activists, and legal scholars argue that the proposal would violate international law. “Any forced displacement of people is tantamount to ethnic cleansing,” United Nations spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric told reporters last Wednesday.
No majority. Kosovo’s major political parties ruled out coalition building on Monday, paving the way for political gridlock after the ruling Self-Determination Movement failed to win a majority during parliamentary elections on Sunday. Prime Minister Albin Kurti’s party won around 41 percent of the vote, according to election commission results, but Kurti said he would not form a coalition with the opposition, calling them “animals” and “thieves.”
Kurti’s biggest rivals are not keen to form a ruling bloc with him either. Bedri Hamza, the second-place Democratic Party of Kosovo’s candidate for prime minister, accused Kurti’s party of wanting “absolute power.” The right-wing party does not approve of Kurti’s pro-Albanian nationalism and resulting international isolation; the European Union suspended some financial aid to Kosovo in June 2023 over Kurti’s hardline policies. The third-place Democratic League of Kosovo has also ruled out coalition building.
Also on Sunday, Ecuadorians went to the polls to elect their next president. According to the national electoral council, though, incumbent President Daniel Noboa led leftist candidate Luisa González by less than 1 percent, meaning Ecuador must hold a runoff vote on April 13. The close showing stunned pollsters, who expected Noboa to defeat González, as he did in 2023.
Odds and Ends
A nationwide power outage hit Sri Lanka on Sunday, and authorities know exactly who—or what—to blame. “A monkey came in contact with our grid transformer, causing an imbalance in the power system,” Energy Minister Kumara Jayakody told reporters. While some are finding humor in the Curious George-type moment, others are warning government officials to stop monkeying around and fix the country’s systemic infrastructure and security concerns.
The post Trump to Impose Sweeping Tariffs on Steel, Aluminum Imports appeared first on Foreign Policy.
