Zelenskyy receives warm welcome from British prime minister, a day after White House blowup
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(LONDON) — One day after the meeting between Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Donald Trump blew up, the Ukrainian president was warmly welcomed by British Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
Zelenskyy was all smiles on Saturday as he was greeted by Starmer outside No. 10 Downing Street, and the pleasantries continued during their photo spray inside.
Starmer pledged the United Kingdom’s “unwaving” support for Ukraine.
“We stand with Ukraine for as long as it may take,” said the prime minister, who also visited Trump this week.
Zelenskyy expressed his gratitude to Starmer.
“We are happy to have such partners and such friends,” he said.
Starmer will host a summit of European leaders on Sunday to discuss ideas to end the war in Ukraine. Zelenskyy was slated to meet with King Charles III as well, the president’s spokesman Serhiy Nykyforov told ABC News.
Buckingham Palace had not confirmed the meeting as of Saturday afternoon.
The meeting followed Zelenskyy leaving the White House on Friday after Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance got into a fiery argument with the Ukrainian president.
Zelenskyy was supposed to sign a deal that would have given the United States access to his country’s critical minerals, but the deal-signing ceremony was canceled after the blowup.
After his meeting with Starmer, Zelenskyy posted on X that the U.K. had agreed to a loan agreement.
“This loan will enhance Ukraine’s defense capabilities and will be repaid using revenues from frozen Russian assets,” he said. “The funds will be directed toward weapons production in Ukraine. This is true justice — the one who started the war must be the one to pay.”
(HONG KONG and LONDON) — Select American goods imported into China will be subject to tariffs of up to 15%, Chinese officials said Tuesday, as they rolled out a series of retaliatory measures to counteract U.S. President Donald Trump’s planned tariffs.
China said it would on Feb. 10 impose a 15% tariff on U.S. coal and liquefied natural gas, along with a 10% tariff on other products, including crude oil, agricultural machinery and pickup trucks.
“China firmly opposes the U.S. practice and urges the United States to correct its wrong practices immediately,” the Chinese Ministry of Commerce said in a statement.
The move came as the deadline passed for Trump’s 10% tariffs on Chinese goods imported into the United States. Trump was expected to sign an executive order on Tuesday putting those tariffs into effect, according to the White House.
Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping are expected to talk in “the next couple days,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Monday. It was unclear whether that discussion would happen prior to the Chinese tariffs going into effect next week.
The leaders last spoke in January, prior to Trump’s inauguration, as the U.S. ban on social media app TikTok was set to take effect.
Trump on Feb. 1 announced tariffs against the United States’ three largest trading partners, saying he would put in place 25% tariffs on goods from Mexico and Canada, along with 10% tariffs on those from China, according to the White House.
Those duties had been expected to be put in place on Tuesday, although Trump and the leaders of Canada and Mexico announced on Monday that Trump’s administration had paused plans for both North American trading partners for a month.
China in the days since Trump’s announcement had said the tariffs on Chinese exports amounted to a serious violation of World Trade Organization rules, with officials adding that the tariffs were “of a bad nature.” The U.S. tariffs were “typical unilateralism and trade protectionism,” the Beijing’s commerce officials said Tuesday.
China said it had brought the U.S. tariffs to the WTO dispute settlement mechanism.
“The U.S. practice seriously undermines the rules-based multilateral trading system, undermines the foundation of economic and trade cooperation between China and the United States and disrupts the stability of the global industrial chain and supply chain,” the Ministry of Commerce said.
China’s State Council Tariff Commission released a list of 72 items that would fall under the10% tariffs. Much of that list was related to agriculture, including several types of tractors, harvesters and other large pieces of farming equipment.
The list of U.S. imports that will be subject to 15% tariffs was far shorter, listing just eight types of coal and natural gas.
As Trump introduced the tariffs against Canada, Mexico and China last week, the White House positioned them as a “bold action” that would hold the three countries “accountable to their promises of halting illegal immigration and stopping poisonous fentanyl and other drugs from flowing into our country.”
Canada responded with a threat of tariffs of its own. Mexico announced on Monday a plan to send troops to its border with the U.S.
U.S. officials also described the tariffs as a point of leverage for the Trump administration against China, pointing to the president’s first-term announcement that he would at that time place tariffs on Chinese goods.
During that trade war in 2018 and 2019, “President Trump acted with conviction to impose tariffs on imports from China, using that leverage to reach a historic bilateral economic agreement,” the White House said on Friday.
(WASHINGTON) — Smartphones, sneakers and board games headline a wide-ranging set of products at risk of price increases as a result of China tariffs imposed by the Trump administration, experts told ABC News.
The tariffs, which took effect on Tuesday, slap a 10% tax on all imported goods from China, the third-largest U.S. trade partner.
The Trump administration had also threatened to impose 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada, but the U.S. reached an agreement with each of those countries on Monday, pausing the tariffs for one month.
Still, trade experts said they expect the China tariffs to increase prices paid by U.S. shoppers, since importers typically pass along a share of the cost of those higher taxes to consumers. The tariffs could hike prices for an array of goods, from curtains to saucepans to winter coats.
“If you could light up everything around you that has been touched by Chinese manufacturing or inputs, your whole room would light up,” Christine McDaniel, a former senior trade economist on the White House Council of Economic Advisers under President George W. Bush, told ABC News.
The exact price impact remains unclear, however, since businesses within the supply chain could opt to take on some or all of the tax burden, some experts added.
The Trump administration did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment.
In a series of social media posts over recent days, Trump said the tariffs target Canada, Mexico and China for hosting the manufacture and transport of illicit drugs that end up in the United States. In a Truth Social post on Sunday, Trump urged the three countries to address his concerns, while acknowledging the tariffs may cause some financial hardship within the U.S.
“WILL THERE BE SOME PAIN? YES, MAYBE (AND MAYBE NOT!). BUT WE WILL MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, AND IT WILL ALL BE WORTH THE PRICE THAT MUST BE PAID,” Trump wrote.
Smartphones, laptops and video game consoles
Personal electronic devices make up a top category of products imported from China, meaning price increases could impact tablets, smartphones and laptops, experts said. Video cameras, headphones and video game consoles would also be impacted.
The U.S. imported $31.6 billion worth of electronic computers from China over the first nine months of last year, U.S. Census Bureau data showed. Those products accounted for 30% of the total value of U.S. computer imports over that period, the data indicated.
“The consumer electronic sector is heavily integrated across Asia — China being a huge center of that,” McDaniel said. “That would presumably be at the top of the list.”
Tennis shoes and sandals
Nearly all footwear sold in the U.S. comes from abroad, and much of it originates in China. That set of products includes tennis shoes, sandals and high heels, among others.
The U.S. imports between 96% and 99% of all footwear sold nationwide, the United States International Trade Commission, or USITC, found in 2020.
China accounts for about $4 of every $10 in imported footwear sold to U.S. buyers, according to the USITC.
Footwear could suffer significant price hikes since the Chinese firms manufacturing the products often face narrow profit margins, lending them little latitude to take on some of the tax burden, Mary Lovely, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics who studies trade policy, told ABC News.
If sellers were to pass along the full burden of the tariffs to U.S. consumers, it would amount to a 10% price increase. Lovely said the price hike for footwear could approach that upper limit.
“For items like this, I’d expect the price increases would be closer to 10% than 1%,” Lovely said.
Toys and games
As with footwear, almost all toys and games sold in the U.S. are imported. China accounts for the vast majority of those products.
The U.S. imported $18.8 billion worth of toys and games from China over the first nine months of last year, U.S. Census Bureau data showed. Those products accounted for nearly 80% of the total value of U.S. computer imports over that period, the data indicated.
Shares of toy companies fell on Monday in anticipation of the China tariffs. Mattel’s stock price fell about 4.5% while Hasbro’s dropped 2%. Each of the companies recovered much of the losses on Tuesday. They both source a lower share of their products from China than the industry average, MarketWatch reported.
(ALLAHABAD, INDIA) — At least 17 people were killed and over 30 have been injured in a stampede at the Maha Kumbh Mela, one of the world’s biggest gatherings that occurs every 12 years, authorities said.
The Maha Kumbh Mela takes place every dozen years in the Indian city of Prayagraj, about 90 miles west of the holy city of Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh, when an estimated 100 million people gather to bathe in holy river waters at the confluence of the Ganges, the Yamuna and the Saraswati rivers. It is considered one of the most auspicious and holy dates on the Hindu calendar.
The stampede began in the early hours Wednesday morning, according to Indian officials. The death toll and numbers of those injured is expected to rise.
It was not immediately clear what triggered the panic at the festival but Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi called the incident “extremely sad” and extended his condolences to those affected.
“My deepest condolences to the devotees who have lost their loved ones. Along with this, I wish for the speedy recovery of all the injured,” Modi said in a post on X.
Modi added that he is in touch with his chief minister and other related authorities regarding the incident.
Authorities are expecting more than 100 million people to visit Prayagraj for the Maha Kumbh Mela — meaning “Festival of the Sacred Pitcher” — on Wednesday for the holy dip. It is regarded as a significant and auspicious day for Hindus due to a rare alignment of celestial bodies after 144 years.
Authorities have built a gigantic tent city on the banks of the rivers to accommodate the millions of pilgrims and tourists attending the festival — equipped with 3,000 kitchens, 150,000 toilets, roads, electricity, water, communication towers and 11 hospitals, according to the Associated Press.
An estimated 50,000 security personnel are also stationed in the city to help keep the peace as well as manage the tens of millions of people in the crowds.
ABC News’ Somayeh Malekian and Prashun Mazumdar contributed to this report.
