U.S. President Donald Trump speaks at Wheeler High School in Marietta, Georgia, on July 22, 2026.
Saul Loeb | AFP | Getty Images
Hello, this is Leonie Kidd from London.
Return to the future.
The Trump administration has found new ways to impose tariffs on America’s trading partners around the world.
That fatigue is evident as the international community reacts with a mix of frustration and anger to what it sees as even more unwarranted restrictions.
What you need to know today
The international community is reacting with frustration and anger to US President Donald Trump’s recent barrage of global tariffs.
Trading partners around the world reject the move and its rationale. The Brazilian government branded the levy “arbitrary,” Australia said the measure was “unjustified” and the Japanese government said it was “regrettable.”
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative on Thursday took action under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, imposing tariffs on 60 countries for the U.S. government’s failure to impose and enforce prohibitions on products made with forced labor.
The tariffs are 10% for countries that have adopted or committed to import bans and 12.5% for countries that have not, and will affect the top 60 U.S. trading partners and 99.4% of U.S. imports.
risk avoidance
Stock prices across Asia are in the red, led by a drop in South Korean stocks. Kopsi and Japan Nikkei Stock Average.
This came after Wall Street closed lower as pressure from big tech stocks weighed on the overall index, and spikes in oil prices and Treasury yields also spooked investors.
For now, European and US futures point to a quieter opening on both sides of the Atlantic.
volkswagen
SAP
European technology champion SAP has cut its profit outlook, citing the impact of rising costs related to the acceleration of AI. The group said recent AI-focused data acquisitions had a “dilutive impact of over 100 million euros ($114 million)”.
Squawk Box Europe speaks with Dominic Assam, CFO of SAP. You can watch it here.
— Leonie Kidd
And finally…
OpenAI’s Hugging Face hack causes Congress to pass “AI kill switch” bill
Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) and Rep. Nathaniel Moran (R-Texas) introduced a bill Thursday called the AI Kill Switch Act that would require artificial intelligence companies to maintain the ability to shut down, throttle, or pause their models.
“Unfortunately, powerful AI systems can misbehave, behave in very dangerous ways, or resist human intervention,” Liu said in a statement. “To prevent this technology from causing catastrophic harm, it is imperative that these AI systems have a kill switch, and that the federal government has clear powers and processes to shut down rogue AI models.”
— Ashley Caputo
