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Hello and welcome to World Business Report from the BBC World Service.
I'm Gideon Long, great to have your company today as always.
And on this edition, Donald Trump has threatened tariffs of 25 % on imports from the European Union.
We'll hear from an Italian winemaker about what this might mean for European wine exports.
This is not only a question of Italian wine.
I think of France, I think of Spain and the American consumer is a great lover of wine.
We'll take you to Nigeria to speak to a man who's helping turn waste plastic into something useful.
These shoes have been made from recycled waste from the streets of Lagos.
You can basically trace down to who has basically picked up this waste.
And we have an interview with the president of Pokemon, the Japanese trading card and video company that's now been with us for nearly 30 years.
But we're going to start the programme today with news of a robbery, because the US Federal Bureau of Investigation, the FBI, has accused North Korea of stealing $1 .5 billion worth of the cryptocurrency Ethereum from a Dubai -based cryptocurrency exchange called Bybit.
It's thought to be the biggest heist of its kind, indeed the biggest of any kind.
I'm joined by the BBC's cyber correspondent Joe Tidy.
Joe, $1 .5 billion, how did this happen?
Well, a very sophisticated hack.
Obviously, we hear this term all the time.
Everyone who's ever hacked has said, oh, it was a very sophisticated attacker method.
But actually, this was.
It must have taken a long time, months and months and months, for the hackers to infiltrate the Bybit system.
They did this by targeting specific individuals with malicious software.
And then really interestingly, they sort of made a fake website that looked like their normal website that they use to transfer money from what you call a cold wallet to a hot wallet.
So cold wallets in crypto terms are wallets that contain lots and lots of cryptocurrency that's off the grid, off the internet.
And then, of course, you need to get that onto the internet, onto the network, when you need to move the funds across.
And they've managed to find a way to fake and make it look as if you were sending money from the cold wallet to a hot wallet.
Instead, you're sending 1 .46 billion to their own wallets.
And the FBI has blamed a group called Trader Trader.
What do we know about them?
Well, the most famous name for this group is the Lazarus Group, which are a very infamous group from North Korea.
The North Korean government has never admitted that they are part of the sort of cyber military.
But that's the allegation for many years now.
They are a very, very skilled, very well -tasked and well -funded and patient group of hackers linked to the North Korean government.
And what's interesting about Lazarus Group and North Koreans in general is that there's no other country in the world that seems to have what they have, which is a hacking team dedicated to stealing money to bring money into the country.
Of course, the allegation there is that they're skirting around international sanctions and using some of these enormous thefts to fund their military program.
And I think there was one bit of research done by Elliptic, which is a cryptocurrency investigations company.
And they said in the last few years there are potentially $6 billion worth of thefts all attributed to Lazarus Group.
So how easy or how difficult will it be for this group to convert this Ethereum into hard cash?
Well, it's getting harder.
What's really interesting about Bybit is they have come up very aggressive against Lazarus Group.
They've started a crowdfunding project to try and stop the money from being laundered.
Because the thing about cryptocurrency, especially when you're dealing with this much money, is that you can't just send it to one of the big exchanges like Binance or Coinbase and turn it into dollars or pounds or rupees or whatever.
You have to launder it.
That means going to lots of different websites and services on the cryptocurrency network, trading it, switching it, flipping it and flopping it into different types of cryptocurrency to try and obscure its origins.
So the North Koreans are struggling a little bit.
And what's interesting is that the volunteers that Bybit has managed to rally around its cause, they are making a little dent.
They've got a website which is called Lazarus Bounty, and they're going after and following the money and trying to get companies that can control the outflows of this money to take action.
And so far, I think the North Koreans are currently on about $150 million worth of laundering, which has gone dark, as they say, which has probably come out of the network.
but they've also been stopped from laundering about 140 million as well.
And who actually owns this Ethereum?
I mean, is it Bybit?
Because Bybit is simply an exchange or is it Bybit's customers?
And do they have any recourse to justice or compensation of any sort?
Well, the good thing here is that unlike in previous cases where we've seen customer funds just disappear by hacking, the company has promised to back all of the customer funds.
So they haven't said specifically whether or not this money came from what would be assigned to customers, but they have got that covered according to the company.
They said they've managed to get further investment.
And it really struck me as so interesting in this case, $1 .46 billion stolen from Bybit.
But they're like, it's fine.
We'll cover it, which just goes to show how much money there is in crypto at the moment.
Yeah, interesting. Interesting to see what happens with that.
And if we actually do get that money, if they do get that money back.
Joe, Joe Tidy, the BBC's cyber correspondent, thanks for joining us.
Thanks. Now, as you'll have heard, if you're listening to our programmes on Wednesday, US President Donald Trump has threatened to impose 25 % tariffs on imports from the European Union.
He's lashed out at the bloc, saying it was formed to screw the United States.
He said that when the US exports to Europe, they have to pay much higher tariffs than the Europeans pay when they export to the United States.
So does he have a point?
And what does all this mean?
In a moment, I'll be speaking to Agatha DeMaris, Senior Policy Fellow in Geoeconomics at the European Policy Institute.
But first, here's the French Industry Minister, Marc Faraci, who's bullish in response to Donald Trump's threats.
We need, faced with a trade offensive, since this would be called a trade offensive, an increase of 25 % for tariffs.
We need to stay united and have a common stance.
We need to respond firmly in a proportionate but firm way.
And so while keeping our cool and moderation, I urge that we prepare for all possibilities in the hypothesis that the United States executes what was announced by President Trump in the following days and weeks.
So Agatha, fighting talk from the French government there.
What's your response to that?
I think there's a lot of positive things in this fighting talk.
The need to remain united in particular is extremely important for the European Union.
But I would beg to disagree about the fact that Europeans should respond to US tariffs, because essentially US tariffs will act as a tax on American firms and consumers, meaning that Trump's measures will ultimately harm the US economy.
So if the European Union wants to limit the damage on its own economy, it might do well to avoid retaliating against the US tariffs.
But surely the logical thing to do if another country imposes tariffs of 25 % on your exports, the logical thing to do surely is to respond in kind, isn't it?
I'm not sure about that.
I think the logical thing to do is to try to see the advantages and disadvantages of imposing retaliatory tariffs.
And from the economic perspective, it's very clear that EU tariffs would only harm European economies because essentially tariffs would do two things.
the first thing that they would do is fuel prices for inputs for European manufacturers.
So they would face higher prices.
And what would they do?
Well, they would pass on higher prices to consumers who would face higher inflation.
And that would be especially so in the many EU economies that rely quite a bit on the US for imports.
And we can think here of Austria, Finland, Germany, Ireland, you know, quite a few European countries.
So the logical thing to do from the economic perspective is to not retaliate.
And from the political perspective also, you know, Trump will not back down.
And there is a high risk that Europeans could fragment in terms of devising retaliation against the US tariffs.
So all in all, I would say not responding is probably the best course of action.
And how likely do you think it is that Donald Trump will actually follow through on this threat anyway?
Is he really going to impose tariffs of 25 % on European Union exports?
And if so, would it be across the board?
Would it be selective tariffs on certain products?
And if so, which products?
We have absolutely no idea what Trump is going to do.
That's the reality that we live in.
And I think that this is a very important thing to keep in mind.
The unpredictability is very, very high.
And that makes it very difficult, both for firms to try to prep and for EU governments and governments around the world, the British government also, to try to respond to US actions.
because when you don't know what is going to happen, it's very hard to prepare.
But I think, of course, the lessons from Trump 1, the first term of US President Donald Trump, is that if Trump makes a threat, well, sometimes, many times actually, he makes good on his threats.
And if Europe doesn't respond with tariffs on US imports, what should it do instead to protect its exporters?
Well, there are several things that Europeans could do to protect their exporters.
and in the long run boost their long -term economic prospects.
I think that something that is really important and often underexplored is the fact that intra -EU trade costs and barriers are so high that they are equivalent to a tariff of 44 % on goods within the EU and 110 % for services exchanges across EU member states.
And this is far more than any tariff that Trump will ever impose.
So completing the single market would be a very good first step.
And the other step that Europeans could and maybe should consider is inking free trade agreements with a number of developing economies.
I'm thinking here of Mercosur economies, but also Asian economies.
And that would probably be a good strategy at a time when European firms worry that tariffs will weigh on their exports to the US.
And Agatha, there's been so much talk about tariffs in recent weeks, But actually, at the moment, at least, they don't bring in that much money to the US Treasury, do they?
Absolutely. Tariffs are actually a very minor source of revenues for the US Treasury.
It's about 2 % of US federal revenues, and that's in line with the average in developed economies.
And what this all means is that tariffs bring little revenues.
They're not very important in the modern world, I would say.
tariffs are a thing of the 18th century when they were a major source of revenues for a number of countries.
But nowadays, they don't bring a lot of money.
Agatha Damaris there on Donald Trump's latest tariffs threat.
So how would US tariffs impact European exporters?
Well, one of the products that gets sent across the Atlantic is wine from France, Spain, Italy and elsewhere.
A quarter of all Italian wine exports, for example, goes to the United States.
And at the moment, they enter the US tariff -free.
I've been speaking to Alviera Antinori, the president of Marchese Antinori Wines.
They've been producing wine in the famous Chianti region of Italy since 1385.
Most of it is sold in Italy, but its biggest export market is the US.
When you start getting into tariffs, it's always not a good idea for anybody, because it would start also retaliation from the European parts, so commercial wars are not good.
for anybody, neither the consumer, neither the producer.
We've seen in the past weeks that the temptation is there strong, but we really hope that in the middle of a negotiation, this issue can be put aside.
And if the US does impose tariffs, how would that impact your business?
Well, obviously, we'll have a negative impact because on one side reduce the sales of wine to the US and on the other side it will raise the local prices.
So it will not be positive, obviously not for us, but not even for the whole wine distribution business in the States and obviously at the end for the consumer.
Just think also the raise of prices in restaurants, it would have obviously a strong negative impact.
So it wouldn't just affect Italian wine producers like yourselves, it would also impact customers in the US?
Oh yes, obviously, obviously.
And how easy or difficult would it be if you did lose some access to the US market because of tariffs?
How easy or difficult would it be to pivot away from the US and find other markets?
This is always the question.
The US is the most important market for fine wines for a lot of producing countries.
obviously. We are fortunate enough to be well distributed in many other countries of the world so it would be a matter of reallocating some stocks and develop more in other countries but there is plenty of space but the American consumer is the most interested one in Italian wines and in European wines.
So this is not only a question of Italian wines, it's a question of a whole European, I think of France, I think of Spain, who are very important.
And the American consumer is a great lover of wine.
And if that happens, if Donald Trump does impose these tariffs, do you think European governments should respond with tariffs of their own?
And would they? I wonder what European businesses like your own think the appropriate response would be?
Well, I think that a negotiation will have to take place.
Obviously, the European export to the US are much bigger than the US imports in Europe.
And this gives us a strength and a weakness at the same time.
But on the other side, we also saw what happened with Canada and Mexico, in which the objective seemed to be to just sit down and negotiate.
Alviera Antinori there of Marchesi Antinori Wines in Italy.
Hello, I'm Robert Eats.
And I'm Brian Cox. And we would like to tell you about the new series of The Infinite Monkey Cage.
We're going to have a planet off.
Jupiter versus Saturn.
It's very well done that because in the script it does say wrestling voice.
After all of that, it's going to kind of chill out a bit and talk about ice.
And also in this series we're discussing history of music, recording with Brian Eno and looking at nature's shapes.
So listen wherever you get your podcasts.
You're with World Business Report from the BBC World Service.
To Africa now where entrepreneurs from across the continent are meeting in the Nigeria.
city of Lagos for the Africa Business Convention.
One of the people attending is Dr.
Akintayo Adisa. He's the founder and CEO of a company called Green Deal Chemicals and Recycling.
It takes waste plastic and it turns it into petrochemicals.
It can even potentially be turned into sports shoes.
I spoke to him a short while ago.
This company was set up in January last year and the goal was to provide solutions for the huge volumes of plastics waste generated in Lagos for which there are currently no solutions to recycling.
Currently in Nagos, Nigeria, which is a city, a mega city of over 22 million people, this city generates over 13 ,000 metric tons of waste per day.
A lot of this waste is ending up in landfills, although we have some of it being recycled.
We have a partnership with Greenback Advanced Recycling, which is a UK company located in Cambridge.
They have an operational plant in Mexico, and they have an advanced chemical recycling technology able to basically pyrolyse very difficult to recycle flexible plastics waste.
The Lagos State Government via its Waste Management Agency was really looking out for innovative solutions to basically managing this waste challenge.
And so you collect this plastic directly from landfill, is that right?
That's correct. So we will source the plastics from landfills.
We're working with some of the best waste collecting agencies in the country.
I mean, where they have basically developed a very unique model which basically empowers waste pickers.
We like to call them urban miners rather than waste pickers.
They are equipped with personal protective equipment and they go onto the landfills.
They collect the waste and then the waste will then be delivered to our facility for further processing into these feedstocks, which can then be used by petrochemical companies to produce new materials.
And so it can be turned into new materials, as you say.
what kind of things can be made from this waste plastic?
For example, shoe manufacturing companies, they also require these polymers, for example, to make the soles of their shoes or the upper lining.
So they are used in making a vast array of products.
Another example is, I mean, you go into your Tesco's, your Sainsbury's or your Asda, and you go to buy, you know, your fruits and veg, the packaging which is used, you know, to house this product are also coming from polymers.
So you can basically go back in circularity to the basic building blocks of these materials to basically generate new materials, but this time not from crude base -fit stocks, but basically recycled waste.
And this recycled waste can also be used to make sports shoes, I understand.
Of course, it can be used to make sports shoes.
I mean, for example, a company like Adidas could basically use polymers, which are basically made from recycled waste to make their shoes.
And they could then make interesting claims such as saying that These shoes have been made from recycled waste from the streets of Lagos.
We are building traceability into it.
You can basically trace down to who has basically picked up this waste.
And have you had support from the Nigerian government, from the state, to get this project off the ground?
From the state? Yes, from the state, because they have very graciously given us a concession to basically operate on landfills in the state.
Because obviously, in this case, the feedstock is the waste.
And without the feedstock, you cannot have a viable project.
So we did approach them, we presented the technology to them, and they were really excited that such a global technology, which is solving the problem of waste on this particular level, there is an interest to have it in Lagos.
And they did meet us by saying, yes, we would be very happy to give you the space that you require to basically site up on the landfills and to basically be able to access the waste.
Dr. Akintayo Adisa there in Lagos.
Let's have a look at the markets.
I'm joined by Emma Wall, Head of Platform Investment at Hargreaves Lansdowne.
And Emma, in the last couple of hours, we've had US GDP data out for Q4.
This was a second estimate.
So we had had a previous figure and it was basically in line with forecasts, but it was down quite sharply from the third quarter when it came in at 3 .1%.
The fourth quarter is down to 2 .3%.
What do you think? What does this tell us about the US economy at the moment, do you think?
Well, you're right.
It's quite mixed data.
But actually, I'd say it's a positive sign, particularly given in the last couple of weeks, actually, we've had a number of kind of wobbles when it comes to economic data, which has led to some bears, as we call them, suggesting that actually the US economy, which has up until now been in rude health,
particularly compared to other developed nations, UK, Europe, that actually it was coming off the boil.
I think 2 .3 % is still very respectable.
And one of the figures underneath that actually, which is really positive, is the consumer spending.
So that's 4 .2 % increase year on year.
And also, if we have a look at inflation, although one of those figures that actually you sort of always have to walk the tightrope of because a good amount of inflation shows good economic progress and too much inflation is obviously something to worry about.
Inflation actually came in at 2 .7, which was above the initial estimate of 2 .5%.
So reasonably positive results there on the data from the US.
Rolls -Royce results were also out today.
Now, many listeners might think of Rolls -Royce and they think of high -end luxury cars.
But of course, it's also a huge aerospace and defence company.
And defence spending, I think we can safely say, is going to increase around the world.
The British government just said this week it's going to spend 2 .5 % of GDP on defence.
And eventually it's going to lift that to 3%.
And other countries are saying similar things.
Here's what Tufan Örgen Bilgilch, the CEO of Rolls Royce, had to say about the UK government decision.
It is good for the country, first of all, given the uncertain world we are living in.
But also, when we talk about defence, we actually forget how much it can contribute to economic growth and the technology development.
And at the same time, 80 % of what we do, we actually export.
So that creates the economic growth.
So, Emma, from what I've seen, good results from Rolls -Royce.
Talk us through what they said.
Yeah, the US GDP figures were cautiously optimistic.
I think we can say the market reaction to Rolls -Royce was an absolute party.
I mean, we're nearing the close of the session now, Rolls -Royce stocks up about 15%.
But intraday, earlier today, it was up as much as 20%.
And this is the result of kind of three really bonanza figures.
So revenue is up 16%.
underlying profits up 55%.
But free cashflow is double where it was.
And actually, they've hit some of the figures that they gave us 2027 financial guidance in 2025.
A lot of this is to do actually with all of us taking more holidays.
So we're now up to pre -pandemic levels when it comes to flying around the world.
And this looks like it's being sustained.
So it's not just a kind of one bump uplift after the pandemic rules were relaxed.
And as you say, around 25 % of the business is still coming from defence.
It's smaller than it used to be, but that commitment from Keir Starmer in the UK to increase GDP, percentage of GDP spending towards defence to 2 .5 % and then indeed again to 3%, and we're expecting similar from Europe, will be a tailwind of stocks such as Rolls -Royce.
And finally, 7 &I, which owns the 7 .11 convenience stores in Japan, their shares plunged in Tokyo and that is due to the fact that the founding family of the company have said they will not now buy out the company.
Thank you Emma for joining us.
Now even if you're not into gaming Pokemon will probably be a name familiar to you.
The Japanese trading card and video franchise launched on Nintendo's Game Boy back in 1996 and since then it's become a billion dollar global media brand.
The Pokemon company remains private and doesn't release earnings, but some estimate that it's sold $150 billion worth of products.
The BBC's Mariko Oye has been speaking to the company's president.
I'm at one of two dozen Pokemon centers around the world where they sell toys, stationeries, cars, you name it.
Since Pocket Monsters was released in a red and green version for the Game Boy in Japan 29 years ago, their popularity hasn't died down.
The phenomenon has been dubbed Pokemania, and what looks like a simple card game can be sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars, or reportedly even millions.
So what's the secret to their success?
I put that question to the president of the Pokemon Company, Tsunekazu Ishihara.
I believe the original game was groundbreaking, because they allowed users to exchange Pokemon that you catch with your friends and other players.
So it wasn't an introverted activity but it became a tool to actively communicate with others.
The number of Pokemon which start at 151 has increased to more than 1000 today and their fans also grew and now span across several generations.
Our mission statement is to enrich both the real world and the virtual world with the Pokemon characters.
Pokemon Go is the perfect example because you can look for Pokemon in the real world.
What about counterfeits and patent infringement?
You recently sued the maker of the hit survival adventure game PAL World.
What are you doing about those fake Pokemon?
We've been fighting fakes since the beginning.
The more popular Pokemon became, the worse the problem.
It affects our creativity, and our customers get disappointed when they receive products that aren't authentic.
And that's not their only challenge.
Pokemon cards are sold for a price tag of six or even seven figures, with influencer Logan Paul currently holding the Guinness World Records for the most expensive Pokemon trading card, which he bought for more than $5 million.
If the cards are rare or seen as vintage, their value goes up.
But it's not our place to say that they are not valuable.
To us, the true value of Pokemon is to play, have fun and communicate with friends.
Along with Hello Kitty and Super Mario, Pokemon is one of Japan's three big soft power.
And the Pokemon company is the only one that remains private despite its huge revenue.
But Mr Ishihara says that's not the biggest difference.
Hello Kitty is one of the characters for Sunrio and Super Mario is one of the characters for Nintendo.
But Pokemon is the only thing we do at the Pokemon company.
So whatever profit we make from Pokemon gets reinvested in Pokemon.
If we go public, we have to focus on growing our profitability and investors might ask what are you going to do when the popularity of Pokemon dies down?
And our answer will be we'll go bust when Pokemon is no longer popular.
Now here's my full disclosure.
I bid for Mr Ishihara's interview when I realized how popular Pokemon is among my children and their friends.
And they were shocked to learn that Ash and Pikachu who were the beloved protagonists of the Pokemon anime for more than a quarter of a century had to retire.
So I asked Mr Ishihara what happened to them.
That's the hardest question you asked today.
Well Ash and Pikachu's journey might have ended on camera but it's only what you see on TV.
Even though the TV camera might not be following them, Ash's journey is continuing and his partner Pikachu is right next to him.
Mariko Oi reporting there.
That's all from this edition of World Business Report from myself in the team wherever you're listening in the world.
Thanks for being with us hello i'm robin ints and i'm brian cox and we would like to tell you about the new series of the infinite monkey cage we're going to have a planet off jupiter versus sapers it's very well done that because in the script it does say wrestling voice after all of that it's going to kind of chill out a bit and talk about ice and also in this series
we're discussing history of Music recording with Brian Eno and looking at nature shapes.
So, listen wherever you get your podcasts.
