Semafor Flagship-Asia Morning Edition.

"US tariff reprieve for autos, Trump softens on Ukraine, Europe hardens on defense."

Views expressed in this geopolitical news and analysis are those of the reporters and correspondents.  Accessed on 06 March 2025, 0101 UTC.

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Thanks for joining us today.

Russ Roberts (https://trendsingeopolitics.blogspot.com).

 

JAKARTA  WELLINGTON  JOHOR BAHRU MARCH 6, 2025 READ ON THE WEB Flagship Asia Morning Edition Sign up for our free newsletters→   The World Today US tariff reprieve for autos Trump softens on Ukraine Europe hardens on defense China defense budget hike Can dollar’s dominance last? Islamic finance expands Using AI to see star collisions Turing for AI innovations Lower-orbit satellites Shelling out for concerts A new Netflix show adapts a 1958 novel that skewered Italy’s ultra-rich. ↓ 1 Autos get one-month US tariff reprieve US President Donald Trump granted auto imports a one-month exemption from tariffs on Canada and Mexico. The move buoyed stock markets after they dipped sharply earlier this week when the duties took effect. Trump issued the brief reprieve after talking with America’s top three automakers, the White House said, but a phone call with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau did not yield greater relief for Ottawa, which Trump said wasn’t doing enough to stop fentanyl trafficking. The tariff back-and-forth “has created volatility on Wall Street, confusion for consumers and massive amounts of uncertainty for businesses,” which are reevaluating supply chains and production plans, CNN wrote. “It’s unclear how long investors will have to celebrate until the next ride on the tariff merry-go-round begins.” ↓ 2 US pauses Kyiv intel-sharing Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty/Serhii Nuzhnenko via Reuters The US paused intelligence-sharing with Ukraine alongside military aid, officials said Wednesday. The move could significantly affect Kyiv’s ability to target Russian troops and military infrastructure, analysts said. But both the CIA director and President Donald Trump’s top national security adviser suggested the pause could be short-lived, as tensions appear to be thawing between Washington and Kyiv. Trump softened his tone toward Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in his Tuesday speech to Congress, and the countries on Wednesday agreed to restart talks. While Ukrainians are divided about whether Zelenskyy should patch things up with Trump, the BBC wrote, it is likely that Zelenskyy feels he “has run out of political road.” ↓ 3 Europe steps up defense posture France Televisions/Handout via Reuters US President Donald Trump’s criticism of Ukraine has united European powers and forced them to think seriously about defense, analysts said. French President Emmanuel Macron said Wednesday he would open debate on using France’s nuclear deterrent to protect the continent, stressing that the “new era” necessitates major rearmament. France is also reportedly warming up to seizing frozen Russian assets to support Kyiv. And Germany, long considered Brussels’ biggest fiscal hawk, is pushing the European Union to change its rules to allow for larger defense spending, and just unveiled its own massive defense plan. “Gone, in a blink, are both the north-south divides in Europe over frugality and an eight-decade sense of security that allowed Europe to skimp on defense spending,” Foreign Policy wrote. ↓ 4 China makes defense, diplomatic advances China said it would increase defense spending for 2025 by 7.2%, as Western powers also look to ramp up their military commitments. Beijing’s defense budget hike, which is in line with last year’s, comes amid heightened regional tensions, as China has held a number of recent live-fire military drills that rankled governments from Taiwan to Australia. Chinese state media said suggestions that Beijing poses a military threat amount to “Western anxiety.” The country is also making soft-power advances: China is increasingly influential in the United Nations as the US scales back its global engagement, while some European leaders “have softly suggested a closer dialogue” with Beijing, The Wire China wrote. ↓ 5 Investors question longevity of dollar Some investors are quietly starting to imagine a world where the US dollar isn’t the dominant global reserve currency. Long-term geopolitical shifts are taking priority over short-term issues, Financial Times columnist Katie Martin wrote, and the early policies of US President Donald Trump have some investors questioning whether it’s prudent to have so much capital tied to the US. The dollar often strengthens as a “safe haven” in times of global upheaval, but that hasn’t happened recently. The altered sentiment shows how the dollar’s dominance is a “blessing and a curse,” though any change would be gradual, Martin wrote: “Regime shifts of this kind do not happen often. But they do happen. Sterling was the global reserve currency once too.” ↓ 6 Islamic banking grows in Southeast Asia Wikimedia Commons Islamic finance is expanding across Southeast Asia, especially in Malaysia, where Islamic banking makes up more than half of total financing. Islamic finance centers around assets and other financial instruments that comply with Shariah law: Loans with interest, which is considered exploitative, are prohibited, as are shares in industries like alcohol and gambling. Borrowing is instead asset-based, and lenders profit “through trade, leasing, or partnerships, offering more stability in times of fluctuating rates,” Nikkei wrote. In Indonesia, Shariah-compliant assets are growing more slowly, but Islamic fintech startups are starting to crop up, while digitization has made Islamic bank loans more accessible across the increasingly affluent region. ↓ 7 AI could help detect star collisions Rendering via NASA A new artificial intelligence technique could help astronomers observe one of the most elusive and powerful events in the universe as it happens. Neutron-star mergers have only been detected a handful of times: The remains of massive, dead stars, neutron stars are incredibly dense — imagine the Sun inside a ball about 12 miles wide. Sometimes they orbit one another, and occasionally they spiral together and merge, sending ripples in space-time called gravitational waves far into space. A new algorithm used gravitational wave data to create an alert system that could detect a coming merger far faster than existing methods. That speediness could enable astronomers to see these collisions take place in real-time, one scientist told Nature. ↓ The World Economy Summit Convening over three days in Washington, DC, the World Economy Summit 2025 is dedicated to advancing dialogues that catalyze global growth and fortify resilience in an uncertain, shifting global economy. This week, we’re announcing our world-class program and the opening of delegate registration. Twelve sessions over three days will focus on the dynamic forces shaping the global economic and geopolitical system, each session is designed to inspire transformative, news-making dialogue to shape a more prosperous economy. Apply to be an in-person delegate or sign up for a virtual pass to watch every session live. April 23-25 | Washington, DC | Learn More ↓ 8 Turing Award honors AI pioneers Association for Computing Machinery The Turing Award, often called the Nobel Prize of computing, went to two researchers who pioneered the “reinforcement learning” concept that underpins modern artificial intelligence. Neurons in the brain work by trial and error: If an action brings pleasure, the pattern of neurons that led to the action become more strongly wired together, so the action is more likely to be repeated. In work beginning in the 1970s, Andrew Barto and Richard Sutton applied a version of the concept to AI, strengthening connections between artificial “neurons” by linking actions to rewards. Barto and Sutton are “the undisputed pioneers of reinforcement learning,” one AI scientist said, and their insight powers everything from ChatGPT to AlphaGo. ↓ 9 Private firm launching low-orbit satellite Rendering via Albedo A private space firm is aiming to launch a “very low Earth orbit” satellite this week, even as many space expeditions are heading further from Earth. Most satellites orbit at 250 miles or more above the planet: Lower altitudes would allow for higher-resolution ground images, but expose satellites to atmospheric drag. So far, taking very high-resolution images has been limited to aircraft, which can only fly over certain areas, or national security systems unavailable to commercial users. The new satellite is designed to orbit at around 170 miles up, enabling it to take photos that “[rival] the resolution of some of the best spy satellites,” Ars Technica reported. ↓ 10 Gen-Z pays up for the music Pilar Olivares/Reuters Live music today is far more expensive than it was for past generations, but young people are willing to pay and travel more to see their favorite artists. The average ticket price for the top 100 live music tours in 1996 was about $52 in today’s money, but in 2024 it was $135. Bigger artists charge more: The average price to attend a concert on Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour was $1,088, The New York Times reported, while a Beyoncé fan said the cheapest ticket for an upcoming tour was $600. Yet many young people go into debt or save for months, and many others are scammed: One Gen-Z concertgoer said she lost $400 on a fake ad for Chappell Roan tickets. ↓ Flagging March 6: The European Central Bank is expected to cut interest rates. Poland’s president meets NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte in Brussels. An exhibition of American realist painter Catherine Murphy opens at New York’s Peter Freeman, Inc. gallery. ↓ Curio Netflix A new Netflix show offers a fresh adaptation of a 20th-century Italian novel that skewered the mega-rich decades before the trope became a mainstay of prestige TV and cinema. Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa’s The Leopard — published in 1958 and adapted into an acclaimed film just years later — follows an aristocratic Sicilian family in the second half of the 1800s, a crucial period of Italian unification. The book is noted for “its scathing tone, evenly applied to all corners of Italian society,” the BBC wrote, and the Netflix series makes a fresh case for the story’s relevance, as the ramifications of that revolutionary period are still felt throughout Italian society. ↓ Semafor Spotlight Dado Ruvic/Illustration/Reuters Palantir is targeting the global financial services industry as the next big market for its AI tools, reported Semafor’s Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson. “We’re at the very beginning of what will be a pretty seismic shift when artificial intelligence truly runs a lot of systems,” one executive heading up the push told Semafor. From fraud prevention to the processing of legal documentation, Palantir told analysts on its earnings call last month it viewed AI as a means to “the self-driving company.” For more stories (and scoops) from Wall Street, subscribe to Semafor Business. → You’re receiving this email because you signed up for newsletters from Semafor. Manage your preferences or unsubscribe here.Read our privacy policy Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up now to get Semafor in your inbox. Semafor, Inc. 228 Park Ave S, PMB 59081, New York, NY, 10003-1502, USA