This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK.
Experience the real Fiji.
Visit Fiji .com .FJ to find out more.
Millions of men quietly struggle with low testosterone.
Now there's a new treatment under development!
ACESiS BioMed is pioneering a groundbreaking medical solution designed to instruct the body to produce its own natural testosterone.
You can be a part of this breakthrough!
Help make this treatment a reality by investing in ACES.
Visit NetCapital .com slash companies slash ACES.
that's A C E S I S together we can improve men's well -being.
This is Andrew Peach with World Business Report.
Today the G7 minus Donald Trump will look at the conversations about tariffs that other world leaders were hoping to have with the u .s. president.
Is China's biggest car manufacturer BYD playing fair?
If any auto manufacturer go to invest in China they will receive equally, or maybe better subsidy from Chinese government because you contribute, like, a job opportunity.
And when songwriters end up in court There was also this, you know, huge sort of existential threat of what it actually meant for the, for the world of songwriting and for songwriters in general.
And I always felt the weight of that.
First the G7 in the Canadian Rockies in its second day.
Defence and security top of the agenda with President Zelensky of Ukraine there.
Here's what the Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney had to say as the two leaders met.
I would like to start by condemning in the strongest terms the latest outrage barbarism from Russia and express my deep condolences and those of the Canadian people to the families in Kiev who were affected.
This underscores the importance of standing in total solidarity with Ukraine, with the Ukrainian people and maximum pressure includes financial pressure.
In the last few minutes, we've heard the Canadian officials saying the US has blocked a strong joint G7 statement on the war in Ukraine.
In many ways, day two has been overshadowed by Donald Trump's absence.
Here's what he had to say on board Air Force One, talking to journalists after his early departure.
You just posted right before we took off that you're not leaving because of a ceasefire can you elaborate the President Trump there if it was hard to hear he was saying he looking for something better than a ceasefire when talking about what's happening between Israel and Iran many leaders were hoping to have some one -on -one time with the President in the hope they might be able to talk about a trade deal before the implementation of global tariffs which is looming.
Brian Schwartz from the Wall Street Journal has been following all of this and is live with me on World Business Report.
Brian, let me just get your reaction to this breaking line, first of all, about a G7 statement on Ukraine, which it looks like the US has blocked.
Yeah, that's fascinating, of course.
And thanks for having me.
I mean, so this is the latest from the reports that you're rehearsing to me, kind of an issue, right, that's come from the G7 summit in Canada.
You touched on this earlier on, but there have also been expectations that President Trump would engage with world leaders and really at least come pretty close.
If it's not really close and actually provide agreements to move on from this trade war that he started in April.
So far, things have not been going the ways I think some, at least some, in Europe and around the world expected from the President.
So there was a deal with the UK sign, but then the details of that were pretty much thrushed out anyway, that was just a sort of rubber -stamping process.
Japan's one example, where the wear, a few minutes of talks, as I understand it, yesterday, no agreement reached.
I'm sure the Japanese Prime Minister was thinking, well, let's have a few more minutes during the rest of the G7.
And of course, that's now up in smoke.
Yeah, that's right.
I mean, let's be clear about something here.
We know of at least two deals, if you want to call them deals, between the US and a counterpart.
One of them is with the United Kingdom, as you just mentioned, and that's more of a framework from I think how the White House has pushed out.
They have said it's a deal but in a way it's more of a framework to move forward. The second, of course, is around China where the tariffs have been lowered and now the US has better access to exports around critical minerals, particularly licensing around those deals around critical minerals since China blocked those during the start of the trade war, trade war, I guess, 2 .0 from Trump's perspective.
Again, there's still some tariffs on China and China continues to put tariffs on the United States.
We're not at zero tariffs on both sides.
So, there's still a long way to go here as we approach the July deadline.
And you mentioned Japan.
Japan's had their concerns around the tariffs that have been impacting their auto industry.
The auto industry is coveted in Japan and because the U .S. tariffs have really in part targeted the Japanese auto industry, there seems to be a red line here where the Japanese countries just want these tariffs mostly if not entirely removed.
And from everything I'm hearing, there is no indication that the U .S. is willing to go there.
And I think that that is truly indicative of where we are right now, why there's been such a standstill, not just for Japan, but also for Canada and other countries that are looking to distance themselves from the tariffs that the president launched starting back in April.
And then there's the European Union.
We don't seem to be anywhere close to a deal between the U .S. and the EU at all.
In fact Trump seems to have fallen out somehow with President Macron, doesn't he?
He's been posting rude things about him on social media.
Well the EU is kind of a horse of a different color.
I mean the EU for the US because the EU is looked at by the Trump administration as having so many different asks from all the different countries that it's become for the US really difficult to figure out how they're going to come to what they have been labeling as deals with those countries.
So, that's been a concern for months.
I remember I was at the G7 Finance Summit in Canada, in Alberta, weeks ago and when I was talking to U .S. officials there at the time, U .S. officials who were at the conference – including people like Treasury Secretary Scott Besant – but when I was speaking to U .S. officials about the situation between the U .S. and the EU, there was still a long way to go before there was any indication that the E .U. and the United States were willing to come together to have a deal and I think that there hasn't been much change since the G7 Finance Summit going into the G7 Leaders Summit that we're seeing take
place in Canada. Brian, thank you so much. Brian Schwartz from the Wall Street Journal.
Live now to Mandy Zhu, Head of Derivative Market Intelligence at SIBO Global Markets.
Mandy, thank you for being with us.
Just give me your take on this idea of trade deals with the U .S. and the EU, the U .S. and Canada, the U .S. and Japan, which don't seem to have advanced as much as many people would have been hoping at the G7.
Yeah. No, thanks, Andrew, for having me on.
I think there's definitely a disconnect between kind of what you guys were discussing in terms of the realities of the negotiations being quite difficult.
That's going to take time.
There's a lot of issues to be worked out versus what investors are expecting or what the market is pricing in, and that disconnect is that there's a lot of optimism around the issue of trade in the markets, and we can see that not just in terms of just where the market's trading, back to near all time highs, but just the lack of a reaction, any good news that does come through on trade.
So for example, last week, when we reached the so -called trade deal with China, the market barely moved on that headline, right?
So that kind of tells you that that good news was already largely expected by investors.
Similarly, a few weeks back, when we had that headline that the tariffs were going to be struck down by the trade core, obviously that's going through appeal, et cetera.
But even on that headline, the market really didn't move.
So I would say, at least from financial markets perspective, they're expecting the negotiations to ultimately be successful or for Trump to walk back a lot of the tariffs that he put on, similar to what happened with China.
So that disconnect I thought was very interesting when I was listening to your conversation earlier.
Oil prices have been greatly affected by what's happening between Israel and Iran.
Pretty high today Brent crude on track to close at its highest for months.
I mean think geopolitical risk of being obviously a driver, positive driver for oil prices.
That's not surprising.
What's surprising is kind of what we're seeing in the markets right now.
Investors actually positioning for much higher volatility in oil going forward. So not just that oil prices have been volatile, they've been going up, but we're seeing positioning for that to even continue and be even higher.
So one measure of sentiment that we track in the options market for oil that's reaching kind of record bullishness, if you will, in terms of the direction of crude oil.
And I think that's particularly interesting given that we've had multiple of these episodes, for example like right now we're pricing for more bullish sentiment that we saw in 2022 during the Russia Ukraine crisis or in 2011 during Arab Spring so that to me that the level kind of optimism or bullishness in the oil market that we're seeing today certainly stands out to me.
Mandy, thank you very much indeed, Mandy Zhu with us live.
Now, lots of data today about US consumer sentiment, none of it particularly good, here's one piece of research out today, it's about spending at restaurants, which in the US has seen its sharpest fall for a couple of years down 0 .9 % in May, the biggest downturn since 2023.
Kim Hanks runs Wim Hospitality, which runs hotels and restaurants in Texas and joins us live now.
Does this chime with what you've been seeing, Kim, over the last month or so?
Yes, first of all, thank you for having me.
You know, we, along with most restaurants, are navigating a complex landscape where consumer behaviors are changing because of inflation and economic uncertainty.
So we're really having to be nimble and change with the different spending habits.
Right, what is underpinning this?
And I guess, what can you as a business owner do to try and combat it?
Well, so what I'm noticing specifically is we, you know, just looking at our data and the volume of people that are coming in, we're actually seeing the same amount of people coming in because a lot of our restaurants are at destination locations, but they're not spending on high ticket items. So if you think about a tomahawk steak, or you know, beautiful bottles of wine, multiple cocktails, they're just not spending on that.
They're buying different pot, they're wanting pastas, they're wanting chicken, they're drinking a lot of beer, because it's less expensive.
So we've had to change our menu offerings.
And, as a business, is that viable?
I mean, so interesting to those of us who are not your position to think about how all this works?
So people still come in, they're not spending anywhere near as much, they're just choosing less expensive items on the menu.
Does that work from your point of view as a business?
It doesn't, but we are eternal optimists.
So what we have to do is we have to hire less employees.
So you'll see that in summer months, when it's beautiful, just like in England, you know, you're expecting people to go out to your pubs and your restaurants, drink beer, drink cocktails, you know, kind of congregate together because it's a joyful time.
You need more employees, but it causes us to constrict.
It causes us to look at our menus and say, okay, if I can't hire more people to have a more complex menu, what do I need to do?
You are pulling in your operations.
So they're extremely tight which means that you're hiring less people Which is not good for the economy and you get any sense from your customers that they're they're worrying about The economy about what's happening in the world that people talk about that or they they too busy having a good time Well, I'm concerned, you know, I am a business owner but I'm also someone that goes to the grocery store and I spent you know, north of four hundred dollars for groceries Always seem to have lost our connection to Kim Hanks who runs restaurants in Texas, but we very much got the idea of her experience
of this downturn in people spending on eating out in the you In Fiji music isn't something we do is who we are Music brings everyone together together.
Music is connection.
My favorite Fijian quote is called Maro tico.
Maro tico means to stay happy, whatever you go through in life, be positive, stay happy.
Experience the real Fiji.
Visit fiji .com .fj to find out more.
Are you still quoting 30 -year -old movies?
Have you said cool beans in the past 90 days?
Do you think Discover isn't widely accepted?
If this sounds like you, you are stuck in the past. Discover is accepted at 99 % of places that take credit cards nationwide, and every time you make a purchase with your card, you automatically earn cash back.
Welcome to the now.
It pays to discover.
Learn more discover .com slash credit card based on the February 2024 Nilsson report Wes you're listening to World Business Report with Andrew Peach This is the BBC World Service and next to Brazil which is selling rights to explore oil blocks near the Amazon River mouth at an auction which has been heavily criticized by some environmentalists, especially because Brazil is about to host the UN Climate Summit COP30 in just a few months.
I've been speaking in the last hour to Nicole Figuero de Alavera, who's executive director of the Ariura Institute in Brazil, an organisation that's fighting these oil and gas exploration opportunities.
We know, scientifically, that we cannot drill new oil wells if we want to contain climate change to 1 .5 degrees.
This is what is telling us, and this is what nature is telling us.
And we in Brazil have been continuously, over and over, offering new oil blocks in new areas for exploration.
And that's the case of what happened today.
And I suppose there's an irony here that this is happening in Brazil, which is about to host the UN Climate Conference, COP30.
Yes, so COP30 will be hosted with a narrative of climate leadership by Brazil, which is offering 172 oil blocks.
And from these oil blocks that were offered this morning here in Brazil, 47 of them are offered in the Amazon coast exactly in the state of Parra and Amapa where COP30 will be held.
And even more ironically, all the boats and equipments that would go to the oil platforms in the Amazon coast would leave from Belém so this would even burden a city that is already being very exposed by COP30.
We are hearing a lot about problems of housing and sewage and water availability and will only be worse by this infrastructure for the oil exploration.
Absolutely hear that you're opposed to the principle of oil exploration, But just guide me through the specific environmental threats there might be on this coast of Brazil.
Of course. The Amazon basin.
So it's called Amazon basin and there's other five basins on the Amazon coast. This one specifically that is the hotspot right now of Brazil.
It's a big fight between Minister of Mines and Energy and Minister of Environment.
One wants to really push for the licensing.
the other one is trying to hold back because it's a very sensitive area.
From the biodiversity perspective it's an area that doesn't have enough environmental study so we don't really know what are the dangers of exploring oil there because we don't know all the species threatened to extinction.
We know that there is a reef a coral system there and the Amazon coral system is really important for the mangrove environment if there's an accident of an oil leak, for example, the whole mangrove coast, which is really important for reproduction of fishes, will impact artisanal features, and also the industrial fishing that happens in Brazil, in the Amazon coast, is important and relevant for the economy of export and import.
A lot of our fish is exported to the U .S. and to China, so there's going to be a big loss for industry but also for the traditional communities that live there as indigenous people, as people who live in the extractivist reserves.
So there is a lot of potential impacts and not enough studies to confirm that it's safe.
And I guess people in Brazil need the economic benefit that would come if oil exploration happened and was successful.
But that's the thing, we have oil exploration in Brazil.
We have ultra deep waters which we call pre -salt and we have been exploring it since more than 20 years, and the place where it's been done for the most time, Rio de Janeiro the state, is a state that has the worst education level in the country.
It has the last six governors either investigated or arrested for corruption, and we have a lot of people living below poverty level.
Well, that'd be good reasons to need anything that might generate the economy, that might generate jobs and be able to improve those things.
Yes, of course, we need to generate the economy and jobs, but not oil drilling.
We have a lot of offshore wind potential.
We have solar potential, and we have renewable energy enough, biomass, to do an energy transition to lead the way to decreasing carbon emissions and also be a world leader in providing renewable energy and clean products like steel and others that are not generated using fossil fuels.
Do you think Brazil and many other countries are following Donald Trump's lead here when he says, drill, baby, drill?
Yes. Petroves president Magda she gave a statement two weeks ago saying Drew baby when she was talking about the equatorial margin which is strange because we are on a left -wing government right now that has been criticizing Trump over and over again and now we see a lot of alignment in the energy politics between Brazil and the US.
And I guess the reason for that is that people rightly or wrongly, seem to have decided that concern about climate change is a nice to have when you can afford it but has to be crossed off the agenda when money's tight.
Yes, but climate change also impacts money, it generates millions and billions of dollars of losses when it's about climate impacts, it's it decreases food production, which also creates more needs for money to pay for this Adaptation also requires investment.
So we have to make calculations when it's about money of 360 degrees holistically and not just looking at one sector at a time.
And from oil exploration off the coast of Brazil to BYD China's biggest car manufacturer.
It started out making mobile batteries 30 years ago now it has ambitions of selling more electric vehicles than anyone else on earth.
My colleague Theo Leggett has been talking to the firm's executive vice president, Stella Lee, and first put to her claims from western carmakers that it's only thriving because of subsidies from the Chinese government.
It's an unfair claim because there's no fact base.
If any auto manufacturer go to invest in China, they will receive equally or maybe a better subsidies from Chinese government because you contribute like a job opportunity.
The same equally here, if we bring the manufacturing here we will receive the same incentive because we bring the job, we bring the technology here.
So instead of staying here, complain, why not focus on investing R &D, focus on to bring up technology?
Are European manufacturers making excuses then?
I don't know. The European union does believe that BYD benefits from subsidies and it's imposed a very heavy tariff on imports of cars into the European Union.
How is that changing your strategy in Europe?
Because BYD is a public company, our principle is to be transparent.
So BYD is always operate the company with honesty and transparency.
But for us, our strategy is make us global company and also localize us.
So even without this tariff challenge, BYD will localize our manufacturing here because our principle is if the market is here, then we should produce locally.
So by the end of this year, BYD Hungary facility will start operation.
Okay, another allegation, potentially a more serious one, made against the Chinese auto industry is that in the supply chain, you've benefited from exploitation of labor, forced labor.
How do you respond to that?
It's also like a nonsense claim because if you are like a world -class company, then you also build up a world -class management on the supply chain and on your whole system.
So just to be clear, you have no concerns about any potential wrongdoing anywhere in your supply chain?
No. Zero concern. You'll be aware of some of the claims being made about Chinese technology and Chinese cars representing a security risk.
We've even had a former head of one of the British Secret Services saying that you could immobilise London.
I mean, how seriously do you take those claims?
How much of a threat are they to you?
Everybody can claim anything if they lose the game, but so what?
It's not a fact. You would pay a very high standard for data security, so we use like a local carrier for our datas, and then we have the data center in Europe, and then also we use the cloud service from Google all the international companies.
So I think BYDs do 10 times better than even our competition on this field.
But we do see these reports in the British press and elsewhere, they do get attention.
You're trying to build a brand.
How much of a concern is it for you that people are reading in their newspaper that Chinese cars are bad?
That Chinese cars will spy on you?
So I just show the fact, because in the end the fact is a fact.
I believe as long as you're transparent, honest, and then carry the high integrity to operate your business, then you're going to win the trust. So those negative perceptions of Chinese technology, you're confident that you can turn those around?
Super confident. Two years ago barely anyone in Europe had even heard of BYD.
Now you're a major player.
Where do you see yourselves in ten years time?
My dream, my expectation, is everybody in here will think about BYD as part of a local brand and it is one of the brands that admire, they love, they dream about, they want to be BYD customer, they want to own BYD car.
Do you want to be number one?
Everybody wants to be number one.
So this always can be the motivation for everybody working hard. stellarly of BYD.
now to the end of a decade -long legal battle over a song beneficiaries of the track let's get it on and Ed Sheeran have been going back and forth by lawyers after the UK artist and his co -writer were accused of copying the Marvin Gaye track when they made thinking out loud which was top 10 song in more than 20 countries as Stephanie Prentiss now reports the matter has finally being resolved Darling, I will be loving you til we're 70 Ed Sheeran's romantic Ballad quickly became a modern classic, with more than 15 million copies sold around the world.
Take me to your loving arms But some people didn't.
Embrace it. With three lawsuits filed by people connected to another classic, Marvin Gaye's Let's Get it on, claiming the melody, harmony and rhythm were copied.
Mr Sheeran won one legal battle in 2023.
Now the U .S. Supreme Court has rejected a claim for damages from the others, and sided with Mr Sheeran, who said he'd quit music if found guilty.
His co -writer Amy Wodge says she's relieved, but the matter has haunted her for ten years.
It felt like the walls were surrounding and so it was incredibly frightening and there was a personal element but there was also this huge existential threat of what it actually meant for the world of songwriting and for songwriters in general and I always felt the weight of that.
It all took so long because it touched on copyright law, involved multiple parties and needed extensive expert analysis.
And followed one of the most famous copyright infringement lawsuits in recent music history.
Robin Thicke and Pharrell had to pay Marvin Gaye's estate five million dollars after being accused of copying the feel and vibe of Got2GiveItUp.
Now, judges say anyone challenging Thinking Out Loud has got to give it up for good, saying the chord progressions and rhythmic patterns are too common to warrant protection.
And there's more about today's global business headlines online at bbc .com slash news from me Andrew Peach and the team on World Business Report.
Thanks for listening to the program.
In Fiji music isn't something we do, it's who we are.
Music brings everyone together.
Music is connection.
My favourite Fijian coach is called Marau Tico.
Marau Tico means to Stay happy.
Whatever you go through in life, be positive, stay happy.
