President Donald Trump on Wednesday signed an executive order shutting the de minimis trade loophole, effective May 2. Trump in February abruptly ended the de minimis trade exemption, which allows shipments worth less than $800 to enter the U.S. duty-free. The order overwhelmed U.S. Customs and Border Protection employees and caused the U.S. Postal Service to temporarily halt packages from China and Hong Kong. Within days of its announcement, Trump reversed course and delayed the cancellation of the provision. Wednesday’s announcement, which came alongside a set of sweeping new tariffs, gives customs officials, retailers and logistics companies more time to prepare. Goods that qualify under the de minimis exemption will be subject to a duty of either 30% of their value, or $25 per item. That rate will increase to $50 per item on June 1, the White House said. Use of the de minimis provision has exploded in recent years as shoppers flock to Chinese e-commerce companies Temu and Shein, which offer ultra-low-cost apparel, electronics and other items. U.S. Customs and Border Protection has said it processed more than 1.3 billion de minimis shipments in 2024, up from over 1 billion shipments in 2023. Critics of the provision say it provides an unfair advantage to Chinese e-commerce companies and creates an influx of packages that are “subject to minimal documentation and inspection,” raising concerns around counterfeit and unsafe goods. The Trump administration has sought to close the loophole over concerns that it facilitates shipments of fentanyl and other illicit substances on the claims that the packages are less likely to be inspected by customs agents. Temu and Shein have taken steps to grow their operations in the U.S. as the de minimis loophole has come under greater scrutiny. After onboarding sellers with inventory in U.S. warehouses, Temu recently began steering shoppers to those items on its website, allowing it to speed up deliveries. Shein opened distribution centers in states including Illinois and California in 2022, and a supply chain hub in Seattle last year.

The US Senate has confirmed the appointment of Pete Hoekstra to be the US ambassador to Canada, as ties between the two traditional allies reach their lowest point in years. Hoekstra, a Republican, is a former ambassador to the Netherlands and represented Michigan in the House from 1993 to 2010. At his Senate hearing in March, Hoekstra backed Canada as a "sovereign" country despite Trump's threats to turn it into the 51st state. In a statement following his confirmation on Wednesday, he called Canada "our most valuable trading partner, our largest source of foreign investment and our largest source of energy imports." The Senate voted 60-37 to confirm Hoekstra's appointment, with several Democrats voting alongside Republicans to confirm President Donald Trump's nominee. He succeeds David Cohen as the US ambassador to its northern neighbour. Hoekstra's appointment comes at a difficult time. His boss, Trump, recently threatened annexation and a global tariff war, and has repeatedly insulted Canada since he took office in January. Over the past months, Trump urged Canada to become the "51st state" of the United States, and referred to then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as "Governor Trudeau". But at his Senate hearing in March, Hoekstra said Canada was an independent country, noting the close ties between his home state of Michigan and Ontario. Still, Trump's comments, along with the tariffs imposed on Canadian goods have turned Canadians against their southern neighbour. Washington and Hoekstra will soon face a new Canadian prime minister, with Canadians going to the polls on 28 April. Prime minister and Liberal leader Mark Carney, who has a slim lead in the polls, took a firm stance against US threats. Carney has previously said Ottawa's old relationship with Washington "is over", imposed retaliatory tariffs against the United States and called for Canada to strengthen its relationships with other countries.

Alma Asinobi’s mission to break the world record for the fastest time to visit every continent came to an unsuccessful conclusion at the end of March. But she succeeded in calling attention to the issue she aimed to highlight through the trip: just how hard it is to travel with certain passports. The 26-year-old Nigerian travel content creator was attempting to beat the current record of 64 hours, held by an American traveler who broke the record in February 2025. When she was initially planning her attempt, the time to beat was 73 hours. She completed the trip in 71 hours and 26 minutes, after flight delays and visa issues derailed her journey. Asinobi says she wanted to spotlight the issue of “passport privilege.” The Nigerian passport is 92nd on a list of 102 on the Henley Passport Index, a ranking of all the world’s passports according to the number of destinations their holders can access without a prior visa. During the journey, she says there were “access and options” denied her, and extra checks she was subjected to because of her “low-mobility” passport. And so despite traveling from Antarctica to South America, to North America then Europe, Africa and Asia within the space of a few days, bureaucracy was one headwind she could not overcome. How the other half travel The vlogger took her first international trip to Benin, West Africa, in early 2020, a trip she said made her curious “to see what else was out there.” Since then, she has visited about 35 countries, including her recent record attempt. While documenting her travels, Asinobi says she noticed that influencers focused more on the destinations, and not their efforts to get there. She experienced lengthy, expensive and difficult visa processes and decided to create social media content catering to fellow low-mobility passport holders. In 2024, after applying for a visa to a European country three times before getting approved, she decided it was an issue worth taking to the global stage. “This is something that … more than half of the world population actually experience,” she said. “They don’t have passport privilege. But we don’t talk about this enough. I just thought … what better way to talk about it than to show the world how tough it is to travel with a passport like mine?” But, she added, it goes beyond traveling for pleasure. “There’s so much at stake,” she said. “People have missed opportunities to go abroad for meetings, for conferences … I know of someone who lost his mom because they couldn’t get her visa to a (different) country in time for her to get surgery done. That is a life-changing event.” Before beginning the journey, Asinobi drew up contingency plans in case of delays or missed connections, but days before setting out, she says one country on her route didn’t give her a visa, which meant fewer options if anything went wrong along the way. She began her record attempt from Antarctica on March 19, and then flew to Chile, and on to Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic, where her flight to Paris was cancelled due to the closure of the UK’s Heathrow Airport after a fire at a nearby substation. That led to a two-hour delay and reroute to Spain, where she missed her connecting flight and instead flew to Egypt. She the flew on to Dubai, where she says she wasn’t allowed to board for Perth, Australia, after being told at the gate that the authorities needed to re-confirm her visa. “This is the issue that we’re trying to highlight” she told CNN at her homecoming event in Lagos, Nigeria. “I stood there and watched everyone board that flight … I was there until I saw them shut the flight and I saw the flight actually take off. It was very heartbreaking.” Despite knowing she couldn’t break the record, after receiving confirmation that her visa was valid, Asinobi took the next available flight to Australia — choosing Sydney to complete the trip, saying the most important thing is that she chose to finish. She says the process taught her the importance of “Surrendering to faith and … to the unpredictability of things and just embracing the uncertainties.” Raising awareness around passport privilege was her primary goal, but Asinobi was also attempting to gain another world record: most signatures on a single piece of travel memorabilia — the Nigerian flag she took with her on the journey. Asinobi says she got over 600 signatures on the flag, and once certified, she will be an official Guinness World Record holder. She says she intends to continue having conversations about passport privilege and inequality “with the people who are the biggest stakeholders in this issue: the government,” citing a need for better diplomatic relations so people from developing countries don’t miss out on career and educational opportunities.

U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff met in St. Petersburg with his Russian counterpart, while Ukraine's NATO allies pledged an additional $23 billion to Kyiv's war effort. A visit from Prince Harry to Ukraine this week brought a soft power sheen to Europe's latest pledge of military aid to Kyiv, even as U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff prepared to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow. At a meeting in Brussels, Ukraine's NATO allies pledged an additional $23 billion in financial assistance to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who late Thursday accused Russia of systemically recruiting Chinese citizens to fight on the front lines of the war it has been waging against Ukraine for three years. The war has claimed the lives of at least 46,000 Ukrainian troops and wounded or maimed almost 400,000 more, Zelenskyy told NBC News in February. After visiting London from his home in California to appear at his security-related court case against the British government, the Duke of Sussex met Thursday with some of the war's living victims in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv. A spokesperson for Harry told NBC News that the duke, a non-working royal on an unofficial visit, wanted to see the support and rehabilitation services being provided to Ukrainians. On his tour of the Superhumans Center, he was joined by veterans from the Invictus Games Foundation, a wounded veterans charity that he founded having himself served in the British armed forces. Zelenskyy and his military leaders have warned in recent days that Putin's forces are massing on Ukraine's eastern border as they ready a massive spring offensive. The Ukrainian president said Thursday in a post on X that in addition to his earlier claim that more than 150 Chinese nationals are currently fighting for Russia in Ukraine, “it is crystal clear that these are not isolated cases, but rather systematic Russian efforts... within the jurisdiction of China, to recruit citizens of that country.” The Kremlin dismissed the allegations Thursday, Reuters reported, while China has in recent days rejected any suggestion that it supports its citizens taking part in foreign wars. Before Friday's aid announcement, Europe had already pledged $91 billion in military assistance to Kyiv, overtaking Washington’s $64 billion in February, according to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy. U.S. aid has come into question since the change in administrations earlier this year, with President Donald Trump and his administration repeatedly criticizing Europe's leaders for not doing enough to help Kyiv fight a war on their doorstep. “We are already doing more — and we can go even further,” the E.U.’s high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, Kaja Kallas, said in a post on X on Friday. Europe's military support to Ukraine was at the center of discussions in Brussels on Friday as the United Kingdom and Germany hosted a meeting with 50 other countries, before which Zelenskyy said he planned to raise Ukraine's shortage of air defense systems. In recent months, the U.S. and Ukraine have discussed developing the latter's critical mineral deposits together a makeweight for military aid. Anthony Blinken, the former secretary of state under then-President Joe Biden, told CNBC this week that Zelenskyy had initially been the one to propose such an arrangement. Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova responded Friday, referring to Ukraine’s allied nations as “Zelenskyy’s handlers” Friday, and saying that they had “bought him lock, stock and barrel, used him, and now they are wiping their dirty and bloody hands on him.” Ukraine's mineral wealth has formed one part of the Trump administration's interests in the region as it attempts to broker an end to the war. Another has been an effort to reset relations with Moscow. A steady flow of diplomatic activity has continued since U.S. envoys met separately in Saudi Arabia with Russian and Ukrainian counterparts and Putin sent one of his close allies, Kirill Dmitriev, to Washington earlier this month for talks. Dmitriev is the most senior Kremlin official to visit the U.S. since Russia invaded Ukraine. Similarly, Witkoff arrived in St. Petersburg on Friday to meet with Dmitriev, who is also the head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, in an effort to break the deadlock in ceasefire talks. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov confirmed the meeting Friday morning before later telling state media that Witkoff would once again meet with Putin after doing so previously. He added that the meeting would make for a good opportunity to convey Russia's position to Trump.

A visit from Prince Harry to Ukraine this week brought a soft power sheen to Europe's latest pledge of military aid to Kyiv, even as U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff prepared to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow. At a meeting in Brussels, Ukraine's NATO allies pledged an additional $23 billion in financial assistance to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who late Thursday accused Russia of systemically recruiting Chinese citizens to fight on the front lines of the war it has been waging against Ukraine for three years. The war has claimed the lives of at least 46,000 Ukrainian troops and wounded or maimed almost 400,000 more, Zelenskyy told NBC News in February. After visiting London from his home in California to appear at his security-related court case against the British government, the Duke of Sussex met Thursday with some of the war's living victims in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv. A spokesperson for Harry told NBC News that the duke, a non-working royal on an unofficial visit, wanted to see the support and rehabilitation services being provided to Ukrainians. On his tour of the Superhumans Center, he was joined by veterans from the Invictus Games Foundation, a wounded veterans charity that he founded having himself served in the British armed forces. Zelenskyy and his military leaders have warned in recent days that Putin's forces are massing on Ukraine's eastern border as they ready a massive spring offensive. The Ukrainian president said Thursday in a post on X that in addition to his earlier claim that more than 150 Chinese nationals are currently fighting for Russia in Ukraine, “it is crystal clear that these are not isolated cases, but rather systematic Russian efforts... within the jurisdiction of China, to recruit citizens of that country.” The Kremlin dismissed the allegations Thursday, Reuters reported, while China has in recent days rejected any suggestion that it supports its citizens taking part in foreign wars. Before Friday's aid announcement, Europe had already pledged $91 billion in military assistance to Kyiv, overtaking Washington’s $64 billion in February, according to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy. U.S. aid has come into question since the change in administrations earlier this year, with President Donald Trump and his administration repeatedly criticizing Europe's leaders for not doing enough to help Kyiv fight a war on their doorstep. “We are already doing more — and we can go even further,” the E.U.’s high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, Kaja Kallas, said in a post on X on Friday. Europe's military support to Ukraine was at the center of discussions in Brussels on Friday as the United Kingdom and Germany hosted a meeting with 50 other countries, before which Zelenskyy said he planned to raise Ukraine's shortage of air defense systems. In recent months, the U.S. and Ukraine have discussed developing the latter's critical mineral deposits together a makeweight for military aid. Anthony Blinken, the former secretary of state under then-President Joe Biden, told CNBC this week that Zelenskyy had initially been the one to propose such an arrangement. Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova responded Friday, referring to Ukraine’s allied nations as “Zelenskyy’s handlers” Friday, and saying that they had “bought him lock, stock and barrel, used him, and now they are wiping their dirty and bloody hands on him.” Ukraine's mineral wealth has formed one part of the Trump administration's interests in the region as it attempts to broker an end to the war. Another has been an effort to reset relations with Moscow. A steady flow of diplomatic activity has continued since U.S. envoys met separately in Saudi Arabia with Russian and Ukrainian counterparts and Putin sent one of his close allies, Kirill Dmitriev, to Washington earlier this month for talks. Dmitriev is the most senior Kremlin official to visit the U.S. since Russia invaded Ukraine. Similarly, Witkoff arrived in St. Petersburg on Friday to meet with Dmitriev, who is also the head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, in an effort to break the deadlock in ceasefire talks. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov confirmed the meeting Friday morning before later telling state media that Witkoff would once again meet with Putin after doing so previously. He added that the meeting would make for a good opportunity to convey Russia's position to Trump.

Ex-MI6 head Richard Dearlove warned Trump that rushing into a truce and giving Russia concessions could pose grave danger to the West. LONDON — If President Donald Trump wants a Nobel Peace Prize, he should hold off negotiating a ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia, Britain’s former top spy told NBC News on Thursday. Richard Dearlove, the ex-head of British intelligence agency MI6, said that rushing a truce — and giving too many concessions to the Kremlin — could encourage President Vladimir Putin to launch other hostile forays into Europe. The Russians badly need a ceasefire, said Dearlove, citing waning Kremlin cash reserves and the falling price of crude oil, which Moscow exports to fund its war machine. “Ukraine is pretty close to a tipping point,” he said in a wide-ranging interview. “But the worry at the moment is that Trump will do a premature deal with the Russians” and make too many concessions. The “highly undesirable” consequences would be to “embolden the Russians, over time, to be more aggressive and assertive in Europe,” said Dearlove over a coffee at one of London’s historic private members clubs. His remarks come as Ukraine’s military chief said Russia had launched a new offensive in the Eastern European country. While often less critical of Trump’s unorthodox approach than many other foreign policy experts, Dearlove said he finds Trump’s general “lack of grace” and “lack of decent behavior” to be “very disconcerting” — specifically his Oval Office bust-up with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in February. “My general view of Americans is they’re gracious and they behave very respectfully,” said a gently amused Dearlove, 80, an Olympic rower’s son who spent a year at Connecticut’s preparatory Kent School before gaining his degree back in Britain at the University of Cambridge. “It’s extraordinary the way that Trump has blown up all of that.” The jovial, outspoken grandee of the British foreign policy establishment joined MI6 in 1966 and served as its chief — code-named “C” — between 1999 and 2004. He now co-hosts the “One Decision” podcast, covering global news, alongside former U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta. He says he “strongly supports” the American president’s campaign to pressure European allies to spend more on defense, decrying the imbalance of Europe enjoying a relatively generous health care and benefits system while letting the U.S. foot the bill for Western defense. “Why should American taxpayers pay for indulgent social security programs in countries like Germany, France and Italy?” he said. He dismisses “Signalgate” — in which Trump’s team discussed bombing Yemen on the messaging app Signal — as a “stupid” and “silly mistake” that showed “a degree of amateurism.” And he said it wouldn’t have a long-term impact on Western intelligence sharing. Reached for comment on Dearlove’s remarks, White House principal deputy press secretary Harrison Fields said, “President Trump is a master negotiator who has done more to bring about world peace during his tenure than any president in modern history.” “The President’s Peace Through Strength agenda has delivered historic achievements across the globe and restored American dominance on the world stage,” Fields added. “The ‘experts’ have been wrong for decades, and doing the same thing while expecting a different result is the definition of insanity.” The ex-MI6 head says his biggest short-term worry revolves around Trump’s approach to Ukraine, which has involved parallel talks with both Kyiv and Moscow and has been lambasted by Trump’s critics in the West as being too favorable to the latter. “If you want to get the Nobel Peace Prize, don’t do a premature deal with Ukraine — wait,” Dearlove said. (According to former aides, the president still covets the landmark award won by four of his predecessors, and for which Trump has been nominated at least twice before.) Dearlove believes the Russians are on the back foot and will only come under more pressure to accept terms. “The Russians themselves badly need a ceasefire, but Putin is incapable of seeking one because he “doesn’t have a reverse gear,” Dearlove said. On Iran, responding to Trump’s announcement that the U.S. will hold direct talks with Tehran over its nuclear program, Dearlove says he believes the administration will “demand a very high price” — namely that Iran give up its entire nuclear program, both for energy and weapons. “I think there’s a bottom line for Trump and Israel that Iran must not have nuclear capability,” he said. “I think it’s pretty clear that if Iran were to try to weaponize or if the intelligence suggests that they are weaponized, then there would be a joint Israeli-American attack.” Trump didn’t rule out military action if the talks don’t succeed, saying Tehran would have a “very bad day” if diplomacy failed. Dearlove agreed: “If the Iranians don’t negotiate, or if they mislead, which they’re quite capable of doing, they’re ones heading for a crisis.” Dearlove was head of MI6 when the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003, and was later criticized by a public inquiry for his handling of intelligence alleging that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, a key argument steering Britain into the war alongside Washington. At the inquiry in 2017, he described claims he was too close to the British government as “complete rubbish.” And, according to a BBC interview in 2023, he is among a minority of people who believe that Iraq did have some kind of weapons program, but that its components may have been moved into neighboring Syria. Looking ahead, Dearlove believes by far the biggest issue is how the West deals with China. “Pax Americana” — the “American peace” that has largely held since 1945 and is a byword for Washington’s postwar global dominance — has “definitively disintegrated,” he said. In its stead, there has to be “some sort of understanding between the United States and China,” whose President Xi Jinping “wants to create a world by 2050 which is aligned with China’s value system,” he added. “China and the West are intimately intertwined: You can’t take them apart, you can’t disentangle them,” he said. “But at the same time, it’s totally opposed to the Western value system.” He characterizes Xi’s Chinese Communist Party as “talking about global domination” — something vehemently rejected by Beijing. “There’s going to have to be some sort of international agreement which accommodates what I would describe as the two spheres of influence,” he said. Otherwise, China is “going to end up in a confrontation with the United States at some point in the 21st century.”

Nigeria is going to Cannes. In what is understood to be a first in the film festival’s near-80 year history, a movie from Africa’s most populous nation has been chosen as part of the Cannes Film Festival’s Official Selection. “My Father’s Shadow,” directed by Akinola Davies Jr. and co-written with his brother, writer Wale Davies, stars Ṣọpẹ́ Dìrísù (“Slow Horses,” “Gangs of London”). The film is set in Lagos in the aftermath of the 1993 presidential election and follows Dìrísù’s father and two sons Remi and Akin, as they attempt an odyssey across the city amid the election’s turbulent fallout. Davies Jr.’s semi-autobiographical debut feature, produced by Element Pictures in association with Fatherland Productions and Crybaby, already has strong support in the form of distributor MUBI, which snatched up the rights to the film in North America and other territories long before the news of its Cannes debut was announced – lending additional hype to an already buzzy title. The movie will screen in the Un Certain Regard strand – a competition for debut and ascendant filmmakers. Fatherland says it will be the first Nigerian film to do so. Reacting to the announcement, Davies Jr.’ told CNN in a statement, “This is a testament to everyone dedicated to telling authentic Nigerian stories: from crews, to the countless technicians who power our film industry. “It honors all those – past, present, and future – who laid the foundation for Nigerian cinema. I’m excited to be an ambassador for arthouse film in Nigeria, and even more excited for our cast and crew, whose talent and hard work truly deserve this spotlight.” “My Father’s Shadow” is produced by Rachel Dargavel for Element Pictures and Funmbi Ogunbanwo for Fatherland Productions. Fatherland’s CEO Ogunbanwo told CNN, “It’s an incredible feeling to see our fully Nigerian story – rooted in Wale and Akin’s experience of losing their father at a young age – come to life on a world stage. “We wove in Yoruba, Pidgin, familiar street names from Lagos and Ibadan, capturing the essence of our home. I feel both excitement and a weight of responsibility, representing independent Nigerian filmmakers who create against the odds. We hope people who watch this film will discover who we are as a people, understand where we come from, and see that this is only the start of how far our stories can go.” Africa at Cannes 2025 The Cannes Film Festival announced it had screened 2,909 feature films to curate its 2025 lineup. Of those selected, “My Father’s Shadow” won’t be the sole representative from Africa this year. Also in Un Certain Regard is “Aisha Can’t Fly Away” by Egyptian filmmaker Morad Mostafa, about a Somali woman working in Cairo, and “Promised Sky” by French Tunisian Erige Sehiri. Meanwhile, Swedish director Tarik Saleh, who has Egyptian heritage, is in competition for the Palme d’Or with “Eagles of the Republic” telling the story of an adored Egyptian actor who falls into disgrace. The US-set “The History of Sound,” starring Paul Mescal and Josh O’Connor, is directed by South African Oliver Hermanus. African cinema, particularly from Francophone nations, has a long history at Cannes, the world’s most prestigious film festival. Directing giants including the late Djibril Diop Mambéty of Senegal, the late Souleymane Cissé of Mali and Chadian Mahamat-Saleh Haroun all made the festival a home from home. Recently, a new guard of young filmmakers has emerged – notably, with more women – including Welsh Zambian Rungano Nyoni, French Senegalese Mati Diop (niece of Djibril), Senegalese director Ramata-Toulaye Sy and Tunisian Kaouther Ben Hania. But despite having the continent’s largest and most prolific filmmaking industry, Nigeria has had little representation at the festival. Nigerian productions have appeared in festival sidebars like the International Critics Week (where “Ezra” by Newton I. Aduaka screened in 2007). But a search of the festival’s online archives shows no evidence a Nigerian movie has ever been a part of Cannes’ Official Selection – comprising the competition for the Palme d’Or, Un Certain Regard, Cannes Premieres, Special Screenings, Midnight Screenings and Cannes Classics. Thierry Frémaux, general delegate of the festival, said at the press conference announcing the 2025 lineup on April 10 that the festival would be checking to confirm if indeed “My Father’s Shadow” marks a historic first Nigerian feature. Nigeria’s big moves Nigeria will have a big presence at Cannes this year. At the festival’s international village, Nigeria is back with its own national pavilion. There, the Ministry of Arts, Culture, Tourism and the Creative Economy will launch Screen Nigeria as part of the “Destination 2030; Nigeria Everywhere” campaign – a broad plan to create 2 million jobs in creative and tourism industries, and contribute $100 billion to Nigeria’s GDP by 2030. The goal is to showcase the nation’s talent and promote international collaboration and attract foreign investment. With the likes of “My Father’s Shadow” and other recent festival titles like “Mami Wata,” the first Nigerian film to premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in 2023, there are signs that Nigeria’s film industry is diversifying. The 78th Cannes Film Festival runs from May 13-24. The premiere date for “My Father’s Shadow,” and its theatrical release date, are yet to be announced.

The war of words — and trade — between Washington and Beijing took a fresh turn Thursday when a Chinese diplomat declared that her compatriots “don’t back down,” sharing a video of Mao Zedong condemning the United States to underscore her point. China, the world’s second-biggest economy and one of the U.S.’ biggest trading partners, has matched President Donald Trump tariff for tariff in recent days. Its latest levies on U.S. goods took effect Thursday, totaling 84%. As other countries scramble to offer Trump concessions in exchange for tariff reductions, China’s more combative approach has drawn the president’s ire. On Wednesday, citing China’s “lack of respect” for global markets, Trump raised U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods to 125%, even as he announced a 90-day pause on higher targeted tariffs on all other U.S. trading partners. China responded Thursday that while it does not want to fight a trade war, it also won’t shy away from one. “We are Chinese. We are not afraid of provocations. We don’t back down,” Mao Ning, spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Affairs Ministry, said Thursday in a post on X. The post also included archival footage of Mao Zedong, who founded the People’s Republic of China, speaking in 1953 when the U.S. and China were on opposite sides of the Korean War. “As for how long the war should last, I think we shouldn’t decide that,” says the former Chinese leader Mao, who led the country for more than a quarter of a century until his death in 1976. “In the past, it was decided by Truman. In the future, it will be decided by Eisenhower — or whoever the president of the United States may be. In other words, they can fight for as long as they want — until China’s complete victory,” he continues in the video, which is subtitled in Chinese and English. In another apparent reference to Trump’s tariffs, the spokesperson also shared an illustration of a “Make America Great Again” hat — which is made in countries such as China, Vietnam and Bangladesh — bearing a “Made in China” label and sitting above a $50 price tag crossed out and replaced with $77. A hashtag about the Mao Zedong post was trending Thursday on Weibo, a popular Chinese social media platform. “We shouldn’t hold on to any illusion that America will go easy on China,” one user wrote. “Let Trump make the call — however long they want to fight, we’ll fight.” The Chinese Commerce Ministry did not say whether it would further raise tariffs on U.S. goods in response to Trump’s latest increase. The door to talks “is always open,” a spokesperson said Thursday, “but any dialogue must be based on mutual respect and conducted on equal footing.” Underlying such comments is China’s history of exploitation by Western nations, memories of which remain searing even as China has leveraged globalization to become the world’s largest trading nation in goods. Even though U.S. and Chinese tariffs are already at “trade-prohibitive” levels, Trump’s public calls to negotiate are unlikely to work with China, said Rick Waters, a former State Department diplomat who is now the Singapore-based director of Carnegie China. “The Chinese are proud. They have a history of humiliation at the hands of foreign powers,” he said. “And I think those types of tactics play into their defensive instincts.” The Foreign Ministry’s office in Hong Kong, a former British colony whose 1997 return to Chinese rule marked the end of what is referred to in China as a “century of humiliation,” said Trump’s actions “won’t make America great again — they’ll only turn the U.S. into a 21st-century barbarian.” “Those who try to strong-arm the world with tariffs and expect countries to call and admit defeat should never count on getting a call from China,” it said. Waters said that while he thinks Trump is “sincere in a desire to explore some kind of a deal with the Chinese,” such a deal may be a long way off. “I think until the two sides feel they have to come to the table, they’re going to let the other stew in their juices,” he said.

Amoako Boafo is in a buoyant mood. The 40-year-old Ghanaian painter is about to open his first London show, “I Do Not Come to You by Chance,” at a UK outpost of the American mega-gallery, Gagosian. It’s an exhibition showcasing a new body of figurative paintings –– joyful, empowering portrayals of Black men and women, wrought in his distinctive lionized style and pairing fingertip-painting with paper-transferred patterns and blocks of color. In one, a woman stands, hands on hips, draped in white lace; another depicts Boafo himself, on a bicycle, clad in gold chains and chintz. Eshewing a conventional “white-cube” gallery setting, sections of the space are covered in patterned wallpaper. More strikingly, one room is filled with a life-size recreation of the courtyard at Boafo’s childhood home in Ghana’s capital, Accra. “The idea of bringing the courtyard situation to London is me bringing home with me,” said Boafo over Zoom. “The courtyard is a space where I got to learn about almost everything: how to take a bath, how to take care of yourself,; how to sit quietly and listen, how to be disciplined.” Boafo’s rise to art-world stardom has been swift and significant. In 2018, as he was finishing a Master of Fine Arts degree at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna in Austria, American artist Kehinde Wiley found his art on Instagram. “He suggested my work to his galleries,” said Boafo, “which was when things started picking up.” By December 2021, one of his paintings, “Hands Up,” had sold for over 26 million Hong Kong dollars ($3.4 mililon) at Christie’s, setting an auction record for his work. Along the way, there was a residency at the Rubell Museum in Miami, owned by renowned collectors Don and Mera Rubell. Boafo signed with galleries in Los Angeles (Roberts Projects) and Chicago (Mariane Ibrahim). “Then Dior happened,” he said, referencing his collaboration with the French fashion house on its Spring-/Summer 2021 menswear collection, “and it didn’t slow down.” Three of Boafo’s paintings were even sent into space –– on exterior panels of a Blue Origin rocket. “I realized that maybe (my career is) never going to slow down –– and it never did.” Unexpected learnings Boafo was born in Accra in 1984; his father died when he was young and he was raised by his mother, who worked as home help, cooking and cleaning for different families. He developed a childhood love of art. “It was one of the ways that kids in the community got together: to draw,” he recalled. “I had always wanted to go to art school but, because of financial difficulties, I did not manage to.” Instead, Boafo ended up on the tennis court and played semi-professionally for several years, until a man Boafo’s mother worked for offered to pay his first tuition fees for Ghanatta College of Art and Design in Accra. The four-year course taught him to draw and to paint. But he also took lessons from the tennis court: “not to sit idle; whatever happens, you move,” said Boafo. He moved to Vienna, went back to school and developed the painterly “language” that has since made global waves. “He was confronting the ideology that art history has to be within a Eurocentric form,” said French-Somali gallerist Mariane Ibrahim, who supports emerging artists of African descent across galleries in Chicago, Mexico and Paris. “To purposely deconstruct traditional portraiture and figuration was really an act of rebellion, but also an act of making and creating your own history. I felt a connection in our experiences: being away from home in a place that doesn’t have much of an African- diaspora community.” Today Boafo sits front and center of an art-world reappreciation of Black figuration. “He’s the head of a locomotive of a new generation of painters from West Africa and beyond,” said Ibrahim. The subjects of his paintings are his friends and family, and, frequently, himself, because, Boafo said, “I don’t see why I should not be present when I am representing my people.” Impact beyond art The paintings are a visual representation of Boafo’s desire to slow down and take stock. He hopes to work on one more exhibition with a similar theme in a different location –– “and then I will step away from making paintings for shows,” he said, continuing to explain that “I want to take a bit of break because I have other projects that I am passionate about –– like architecture and tennis. I want to build my own tennis academy, to develop (sports initiatives) so that the youth have something to do.” At Gagosian in London, the new self-portraits –– including one of his largest paintings to date, in which Boafo reclines on a bed, swathed in floral patterns and surrounded by plants –– have an added poignancy. They act as “a reminder of the things that I want to do,” he said. “It’s a reminder to take a break and do yoga. Take a break and go on a bike ride. Take a break and look pretty and beautiful. Take a break and, sometimes, just stay home and relax.” With his work now held in major museum collections, from London’s Tate and the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris to New York’s Guggenheim and the Hirshhorn in Washington, D.C., Boafo has become something of a local celebrity in Accra. “Sometimes you wake up in the morning and you have 10, 15 people at your door waiting to talk to you,” he said. “Everybody wants to put their problems in front of you. There’s some joy (in it) and there’s some stress.” He is enmeshed in the local community through his dot.ateliers initiative — an artists’ residency, launched in 2022, that has since expanded to host writers and curators. Crucially, it offers spaces that foster experimentation and allow participants “to evolve or think on (their) own”, he said, adding: “I imagine dot.ateliers to be an institution which should live beyond me.”

The strike killed Ahmed Mansour, an editor with the Palestine Today news agency, and his co-worker Hilmi Al-Faqawi. Yousef Al-Khozindar, a father of two working with NBC News to procure supplies and fuel, was in the tent next door being used by the news agency. The Israeli military said in a statement Monday that it had been targeting Hassan Aslih, a Gaza-based freelance photographer with hundreds of thousands of followers on social media. The military described him as a “terrorist” with Hamas’ Khan Younis Brigade operating “under the guise of a journalist.” Aslih was wounded in the strike, according to the government media office in the Hamas-run enclave. More than 50,500 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack on Israel, according to the Health Ministry there. Israel has said 1,200 were killed in the attack and around 250 were taken hostage. The conflict has been especially dangerous for media workers. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 2024 was the “deadliest year for journalists” around the world, with Israel being “responsible for nearly 70 percent” of those killed. Sunday’s airstrike brought the number of journalists killed in Gaza since the start of the war to at least 175. On Monday, the New York-based committee, which is considered the world’s leading advocate for media workers, denounced the attack and called on the international community to “act to stop Israel killing Palestinian journalists.” “This is not the first time Israel has targeted a tent sheltering journalists in Gaza,” CPJ Middle East and North Africa Director Sara Qudah said in the statement. “The international community’s failure to act has allowed these attacks on the press to continue with impunity, undermining efforts to hold perpetrators accountable.” Journalists are protected under international humanitarian law “as long as they do not take a direct part in the hostilities,” according to the International Committee of the Red Cross. The Israel Defense Forces said that Aslih had “participated” in the Oct. 7 attacks and that he had documented and uploaded video of “looting, arson and murder to social media.” Israel has often asserted that journalists it has killed were either members of Hamas or supporters, frequently without providing clear evidence. The Israel Defense Forces said it had taken “numerous steps” to mitigate harm to civilians before it launched the strike Sunday, including the use of precise munitions, aerial surveillance and additional intelligence. Asked by NBC News on Tuesday whether it was aware that other journalists were at the tent camp when the strike was launched, the IDF shared its initial statement, which did not directly address the question.