Global News Podcast
President Trump's planned tariffs on steel and aluminium imports widely condemned
Mon, 10 Feb 2025
Governments in Europe and elsewhere express concern and vow countermeasures about President Trump's tariffs on steel and aluminium imports. Also: US doubles down on Gaza plan, and sled dog championships in Sweden.
Chapter 1: What are the main topics covered in this episode?
The summit comes weeks after a seismic industry shift as China's deep-seek unveiled a powerful low-cost AI model challenging US dominance. President Macron's special envoy for the summit, Anne Boverow, told Amal Rajan it helped to highlight France and Europe's role in the sector and to promote using AI in the public interest in a shared, sustainable way.
This is exactly why we're having the conversation. It is true that a couple of companies in the US and China are clearly doing incredible things, huge investments on the one hand, but it's progress on the other hand as well. We can be heartened by the fact that we're talking very different numbers.
The DeepSeek announcement in China, although we don't know exactly where the numbers are, they're very low. And I think it shows that not all the cards have been dealt, that not everything is written. And there is an opportunity for the countries and actors who want to do things in AI based on the fact that you have talent, that you have some computing capacity, data, the will to go ahead.
there are still opportunities to do things, which is why I think shared progress is a real possibility.
Do you think that some kind of global regulator for AI is either necessary or desirable?
It depends what you call a global regulator. We have the United Nations for the overall principles. Our philosophy for the AI Action Summit was to build coalitions of the willing. So we will be unveiling a coalition for a sustainable development of AI with some governments and some companies.
We will be unveiling a foundation or a partnership for AI to be developed in the public interest with a number of actors.
And that's a coalition of the willing. When you say sustainable development of AI, what do you mean? You don't mean sustainable in an environmental sense, do you? Yes, I do. You mean that and for the public good. What does sustainable AI mean then?
It means having companies and governments that pledge to develop frugal models, more efficient hardware and use cases that take the environment into account. and also to use AI to help with climate change. So it means actors saying we are mindful of the climate crisis and we want to develop AI in the best way possible given this challenge.
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Chapter 2: What are the global reactions to Trump's steel and aluminium tariffs?
What's the government doing about it?
Well, it's tried to offer lots of different incentives. So in little villages, you can buy a house for much cheaper if you're married. Things like this are happening. And the government's really tried to make it clear that this is a big priority. It wants people to get married faster. in order to have more children so that there is a much bigger, younger demographic.
But it's just something that young people are just not that interested in. I mean, young women are concerned that they might be forced back into traditional roles. You see a lot of comments on social media that young women are saying that they're concerned they're being turned back into baby making machines. And young men as well. I mean, they think that
Weddings are expensive and there are these traditional expectations that you have to buy a house as a prerequisite for marriage if you're male. And youth unemployment's been, well, it's sat at around 20% for the last few years. So a lot of young men are quite poor. And the idea that they need to save towards a marriage is, it's very low on their priority list.
If this trend line continues, though, it's pointing at a very scary future.
It is, yes. There are a lot of concerns. I mean, this is why the government has really tried to ramp up this marriage message in recent years. Because the older demographic, there's nobody to look after them. So there's this concern that, you know, who's going to look after the population over the age of 60? And already now, over 21% of China's population is over 60.
And not only that, there's a shrinking labour market because, yeah, you've got a situation where there are fewer young people to fill in behind the jobs left by the older demographic. So Who's going to look after the older demographic and who's going to do the jobs?
Kerry Allen, our China media analyst. Over the weekend, competitors from more than 20 countries gathered in northern Sweden for this year's Sled Dog World Championship. With the details, here's Stephanie Zachrisson.
With sub-zero temperatures and heaps of snow as far as the eye can see, this is as close as you can get to the natural habitat of Siberian huskies, Alaskan malamutes and other Arctic dog breeds. More than 1,000 of them have gathered in Östersund, taking on the challenge of pulling their sleds and drivers, or mushes, as quickly as they can on the Swedish trails.
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