Good morning. We’re covering Trump’s threat of 50 percent tariffs on India and plans for a possible Russia-Ukraine-U.S. summit. Plus, is Japan done with pacifism?
Trump ratcheted up tariffs on India to 50 percentPresident Trump signed an order yesterday that would double tariffs on India to 50 percent as punishment for the country’s purchase of Russian oil. The new 25 percent tariff, which will be added to the 25 percent tariff Trump announced last week, will take effect on Aug. 27 if India doesn’t stop buying Russian oil. Trump also threatened to impose similar penalties on other countries that buy Russian energy, as a way to pressure the Kremlin into ending the war with Ukraine. India’s foreign ministry called the move “extremely unfortunate” and reiterated that it was importing oil from Russia to meet the energy needs of its 1.4 billion people. India is the second-largest importer of Russian oil after China; Turkey is another major oil customer. Here’s what to know about India’s oil trade with Russia. Analysis: Trump had been expected to bolster trade with India as a counterweight to China. Now, Trump has all but declared economic war against India, writes Alex Travelli, who covers the Indian economy. In tech: Trump and Tim Cook, Apple’s chief executive, announced that the company was pledging $100 billion in additional U.S. investment, its latest move to avoid iPhone tariffs. Trump also threatened to impose levies of 100 percent on all foreign-made chips next week unless manufacturers agreed to invest and build in the U.S.
Trump intends to meet with Zelensky and PutinTrump told European leaders during a call yesterday that he intends to sit down with President Vladimir Putin of Russia as soon as next week. He then aims to meet with both Putin and the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, according to two people familiar with Trump’s plan. It was not immediately clear whether Putin or Zelensky had agreed to the joint meeting. Zelensky said in a statement that he had had a conversation with Trump and that he and Europe’s leaders agreed that the war in Ukraine “must end,” but that it must be “an honest end.” Trump’s announcement came after his envoy, Steve Witkoff, met with Putin. Russian news agencies reported that the talks in the Kremlin lasted about three hours. Trump has been stymied for months in his efforts to negotiate a peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine after more than three years of war. Related: Thousands of Ukrainians now struggle with the trauma of severe facial injuries, but the country’s doctors have made strides with 3-D printing in facial reconstruction.
China turns to A.I. in information warfareThe Chinese government is using companies with expertise in artificial intelligence to monitor and manipulate public opinion in Hong Kong and Taiwan, according to current and former U.S. officials and documents. Internal documents from the Chinese company GoLaxy show how Beijing had undertaken influence campaigns in Hong Kong and Taiwan, and collected data on members of the U.S. Congress and other influential Americans. Experts said that using A.I. in this way could result in far more sophisticated influence operations than those in the past. GoLaxy denied that it had done any work related to Hong Kong or other elections, and it said its products were mainly based on open-source data and did not specifically target U.S. officials. After being contacted by The Times, GoLaxy began altering its website, removing references to its national security work on behalf of the Chinese government.
Barry James, a paleontologist, built a business in Pennsylvania with his wife, April, painstakingly assembling the skeletons of T. rexes and sauropods, which can sell for tens of millions of dollars. They were reconstructing a triceratops when April died last year, and James, bereaved, stopped working. But he has started again, and has one heartfelt request for whoever buys the triceratops: that they call it April. Lives lived: Stella Rimington, the first woman to lead Britain’s MI5 intelligence agency, died at 90.
A pacifist nation not entirely at peaceHiroshima has a Peace Boulevard, a Peace Bell and a Peace Memorial Park. The city and the rest of Japan were rebuilt with pacifism at their core after the American atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. But 80 years after the world’s only nuclear attacks, Japan is not entirely at peace. Ultranationalist politicians are pushing for a more militaristic Japan in a world cleaved by conflict, and many younger Japanese are in favor. Here’s more on why public opinion is changing, and watch this video of my colleague Hannah Beech explaining the shift. We hope you’ve enjoyed this newsletter, which is made possible through subscriber support. Subscribe to The New York Times.
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