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Hello and welcome to the World Business Report here on the BBC World Service.
I'm Rahul Tannen. Plenty coming up on this edition.
Of course there will be conversations about tariffs, and the US Vice President J .D.
Van Slao is in Greenland and starts a new row.
He says Denmark has underinvested in the territory.
Is he right? Denmark is investing quite a bit every year in Greenland.
Subsidies through block grant to Greenland is a quite significant amount of money.
And we'll be telling you a little bit more about that phone call between the Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and Donald Trump, where, guess what, tariffs came up in the conversation.
But it was around midday local time when a 7 .7 magnitude earthquake struck in central Myanmar. The epicenter was about 10 miles from the country's second city, Mandalay, and soon reports began to emerge of deaths, injuries and collapsed buildings.
That was the sound of a pagoda near Mandalay being destroyed and according to this man, involved in the rescue effort, it was one of many examples of buildings not being able to withstand The force of the quake The view of Mandalay as we began our rescue was very horrific Most of the buildings have collapsed people are running in the streets screaming and crying some people are running with injuries Some people are falling down on the road.
We had to rescue people trapped in the rubble So far we know that at least 144 people have been killed hundreds more have been injured They were expecting that death toll to rise.
Neighbouring countries have also felt the effects of the quake, most notably Thailand, wherein scenes that were spread quickly around the world via social media are half built.
A skyscraper in Bangkok with many construction workers inside collapsed.
Let's bring in Mimi Windbird, a Burmese -American security analyst who specialises in Myanmar. Mimi, thanks so much for joining us here on the programme.
This is an area that you know well.
this is a country that you were born in, what reports are you getting of the scale of the damage inside the country?
Thank you so much for having me.
First, you know, I want to express heartfelt sympathy for the victims of the earthquake in Myanmar and also in Thailand.
And while in Thailand The entire government has you know launched a rescue effort in Myanmar. The military resumed bombing of some of the affected area, soon after the earthquake.
So that's the difference.
What about the scale of the damage?
This is a country, you know well, whose economy has been devastated over the last few years hasn't it?
just give our listeners an idea of the state of the economy in many parts of the country?
Yes. The economy has reduced by 30 percent, conservatively, by World Bank.
So it's 30 percent smaller than it was before the coup, military coup.
And right now, the inflation of rice, very essential, is nearly 50 percent.
And the currency has devalued from $1 ,300 per dollar to $4 ,500, over $4 ,500 per dollar.
So those are the economic problem.
and it's all caused by the military regime, weaponizing the economy and then coming up, developing these policies that are economic policies that are benefiting his family and the small group of cronies.
Just stay there for a minute, you know, the military has on this occasion, requested, hasn't done on previous occasion, so a slight difference there, but I Senior Vice President of International Programs at the Aid Agency International Rescue Committee.
I've been asking him in these sort of situations, how do you get money?
How do you get aid to these areas?
In the first instance, funding often comes from local communities and from organisations already on the ground.
We at the International Rescue Committee have worked in Myanmar for nearly two decades.
We have about 350 staff on the ground who are already mobilising to assess the needs in communities and with the resources we already have at our disposal, figuring out how to respond.
But we know that those resources are going to be insufficient to meet the needs.
The numbers and reports of damage we're seeing come out, even with limited communications.
We know that it's significant, we know that damage estimates, and the numbers of people affected, are only going to grow over the coming days.
And so when it comes to resourcing the response, typically it's government donors, multilateral institutions like the UN as well as private donors who respond through giving campaigns and appeals that fund organisations like the IRC and our humanitarian partners, as well as our local partners on the ground in Myanmar to be able to respond.
And you need to know, don't you, how much money is needed to solve or help deal with the problems that Myanmar is now facing.
When you have difficulty in terms of communication, how easy is it to build up that picture?
It's really difficult.
And the starting point here is that Myanmar is a country that's been affected by civil conflict for the last several years in which public services, the health system, infrastructure and so on have already been significantly impacted by that conflict, where there's nearly 20 million people affected in need of humanitarian assistance, three and a half million people displaced, and where the UN appeal for funding for the total humanitarian response is only funded to the tune of less than 5%.
So there's already a significant gap between what's needed to meet the humanitarian needs before the earthquake struck and what's currently available.
Now, when an earthquake strikes, it's very hard to get that information.
And so inevitably, we're always going to be working on the basis of our best estimates of trying to figure out what's needed, but we know that what's currently available and what's in the pipeline is going to be far from sufficient.
You know what you have available at the moment.
So what do you do with that money then?
How do you get it to the people who are affected?
Is that by providing them with goods in some instances?
Will you try and give them direct cash to help them get the resources they need?
It's a little bit of everything really.
I mean, what people need in a situation like this, they need immediate support.
They need shelter, they need access to safe water, they need, in some cases, as you say, cash to be able to purchase food for themselves and their families or replace things that they've lost. They may need clothes, things like that.
Cash assistance is actually one of the most efficient ways to deliver support because we can get it to people quickly and then they can rely on local markets, which are always, always active, even in the worst crises, to be able to get what they need and to identify for themselves what's going to best meet their needs.
But in other cases, it's going to be providing drugs and pharmaceutical supplies to health clinics.
It's going to be providing shelter and construction materials to help people to keep themselves out of the elements if it's not safe to go back into their buildings.
How easy is it to get into those affected areas?
One, because there's been an earthquake and two, because this is a country where there has been a large amount of civil conflict.
Well, that's exactly the two challenges, right?
In any earthquake situation you've got.
Particularly in a country where there isn't already a strong infrastructure, but you've got roads that have been destroyed.
You've got airports that have been damaged.
You've got supply chains that have been disrupted, it's very hard simply physically to get into the affected areas.
You know, organizations like ours, we have staff based in those communities who are able to respond directly and communicate back to us as best they can.
But when you're talking about responding in a conflict situation, as in Myanmar or as in other conflicts around the world, you then have to negotiate with different parties to be able to work across conflict lines.
What I hope to see and what I'd appeal to any party in the conflict is to allow unfettered access for humanitarian agencies regardless of areas of control or conflict lines to be able to access those communities, to assess needs and to continue responding to communities on the basis of how severe they've been impacted and to be able to respond in a needs -based way.
Vice president of International Programs at the Aid Agency, the International Rescue Committee, Amimi Windberd still with us.
Getting those resources in is difficult.
Do you worry that all those resources that may get in will go to the right areas, to the right people?
Right, as long as if they are just working only with the military, I don't have any confidence that it will get to the right people, because we have had many experience of military siphoning off all these aid materials, and I personally was involved in the cyclone Argus response, and there has been stories of all these aid material ended up in the military's hand, and even as recent as in Rakhine State, we saw in the military warehouse world food program food that are being distributed kept for the military rations.
So, this is really important to work through the local on -the -ground organization rather than through the military regime.
Mimi last question to you this is a country that as you described at the beginning has suffered economically so much we're just getting a sense of the scale of the devastation.
But this is going to set back that economic progress even more now, isn't it?
Well, there wasn't any economic progress.
According to the World Bank, there was no sign of growth at all for their economy.
They don't even have enough energy.
They only get four hours of electricity.
So economy is already in a chamble.
So I think that these people are already vulnerable, and this would just devastate them some more.
Mimi, thanks for joining us here on World Business Report.
Somebody who knows that area very well and closely follows the political and economic developments that takes place.
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Let's move to Europe now, because US Vice -President JD Vance has accused Denmark of under -investing in the security of Greenland and leaving it vulnerable.
Our message to Denmark is very simple.
You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland.
You have underinvested in the people of Greenland and you have underinvested in the security architecture of this incredible, beautiful landmass filled with incredible people.
That has to change, and because it hasn't changed, this is why President Trump's policy in Greenland is what it is." These people in Greenland gave the BBC their views of the new United States policy towards them.
I don't mind to cooperate with the Americans, but most of the population in Nuuk or maybe England are just against that swamp.
And a lot of people are worried and I think it's also because we are very agreed on that their intentions aren't as pure as clear as they claim to be.
I think he is delirious.
He thinks he can just take over the world.
Let's pick up on that sense that J .D.
Vance is trying to create, that Denmark is under investing in the security of Greenland.
I've been speaking about that to Michel Rong Ollison, senior researcher at the Danish Institute for international studies.
If you was to make a point of it, I would say that the US has more of a point on security than on the other matter.
I mean, Denmark is investing quite a bit every year in Greenland.
Subsidies through a block grant to Greenland is a quite significant amount of money.
But when it comes to security, of course, well, it's actually been very high on the Danish agenda since at least 2019, but the problem has been that the money that has sort of been set aside, it has proven difficult to spend it than to decide to spend it, there have been problems finding a way to get that money spent, and that is obviously not putting Denmark in a very good position with the US now in 2025, when the fact of the matter is that a lot of the money that Denmark initially said it would spend already back in 2019.
It hasn't been spent yet.
Can I interrupt you there?
When you say they don't know where to spend the money or they're struggling to spend the money.
It's normally the other way around.
It's hard to get the money.
Why haven't they been able to spend it?
We haven't heard a clear answer from the Danish Minister of Defence yet.
But of course, when it comes to sort of defence spending, when it comes to buying new equipment, all sorts of things can go wrong in terms of making sure you find the right gear for the job and get the contract signed.
But for whatever reasons, the fact of the matter remains that those money that was initially promised in 2019 that they haven't been spent yet.
And that is unfortunate.
The political will is actually there.
The problem is just to get these investments implemented quickly enough, really.
We're talking about investment in security.
Can I talk to you about investment in critical minerals?
Because there's graphite, there's rare earth, there's nickel, there's gold in Greenland.
Has Denmark done enough to develop those areas?
I would argue actually that this also very much comes down to the free market.
This comes down to whether there are companies willing to invest. And the big problem about minerals in Greenland is, Greenland is very wealthy on loads of different minerals.
The problem just is that it is a very remote place, it's a harsh climate, so it is fairly expensive to extract minerals from Greenland and therefore, there has been challenges for big companies in finding good business cases for extracting these resources.
That, more than anything, really has been the factor that has slowed down these things.
The US is trying, to some extent, isn't it, to take advantage of the fact that many people in Greenland do want independence from Denmark, don't they?
Yeah, yeah, they definitely do.
There's no doubt about it.
The majority of the Greenlanders want independence from Denmark.
Every poll shows this, but they don't want independence from Denmark just to be dependent on the US instead.
that they want true independence.
That's what you would say the tricky part of it from a US perspective, then.
They would also have to sell why the Greenlanders should give up that independence and then join the US instead.
Do you think that because Donald Trump and J .D.
Vance have made and are continuing to make such an issue of Greenland, that we will see Denmark spending maybe more money on Greenland than it had planned to?
Yeah, I think that is actually likely.
If that was the motive all along from the US side, then that part of it could be said to be working.
But of course, at the price of the US -Danish relationship, which has really suffered tremendous blows these recent months.
But yes, to answer your question, I think that this crisis is leading Denmark to spend more than it otherwise would.
But then what was already planning to spend a lot more in the Arctic, but now it may be even more so.
Chris Lowe is with us, Chief Economist at FHN Financial in New York.
Interesting to hear voices from Greenland.
Security, obviously, a big concern, but those minerals and raw materials that Greenland have are extremely valuable aren't they Chris?
They are, but it's absolutely true that it's both extraordinarily hard to extract and ship them from an environment like Greenland, But also, these rare earths and other minerals, these markets that China dominates, China's very effective at causing the price to decline by producing more when people try to compete with them.
In that way, they have driven other people out of the market.
So, the challenges are deep and geopolitical as well as economic.
Chris, we're going to talk about tariffs now, no surprise, and we're going to get your thoughts in more detail, but just briefly if you don't mind.
As somebody who's a market analyst, how difficult is it to follow what's going on at the moment?
It's extraordinary.
I've had meetings all week with some huge money managers, and all of them are struggling to keep up with the latest news.
And I think most are resigned to sort of let's try to figure out where things will land three or four months from now and maybe not worry too much about the day to day blow by blow stories.
Well listen, let's now talk through today's story.
The Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney says he's told Donald Trump that Ottawa will impose retaliatory tariffs on American goods from early in April.
The two leaders held their first call since Mr. Carney took office earlier this month.
Speaking in the White House, Mr. Trump, well, he was positive about the call, but once again talked about tariffs on America's biggest trading partners.
We had a very, very good talk.
He's going through an election now and we'll see what happens.
But we have Liberation Day, as you know, on April 2nd because and I'm not referring to Canada, but many countries have taken advantage of us, the likes of which nobody even thought was possible for many, many decades and you know that has to stop.
We're going to end up with a very good relationship with Canada and a lot of the other countries.
Some we probably won't, it won't be so pleasant.
Mark Carney says that Canada and the US will they'll hold talks about the strained economic relationship after Canada's general election later next month.
Right now, as Canadians, we have to look out for ourselves and we have to look out for each other.
The old relationship we had with the United States based on deepening integration of our economies and tight security and military cooperation is over.
What exactly the US does next is unclear, but what is clear is that we as Canadians have agency.
We have power. So how should countries respond to Donald Trump's proposed and implemented tariffs?
Larry Summers is a former US Treasury Secretary.
I think the system in general functions best when in international negotiation, countries are prepared to stand up for their own interests.
So I think the instinct that a number of countries have had to find politically sensitive sectors in the United States and use them for retaliation is a warranted one.
We're going to hear a bit more about that in a minute.
But Chris, it's hard though, isn't it, for these countries, because when you look at trading relations, often that powers with the US, isn't it?
Absolutely. And Canada in particular, I understand where Carney's coming from.
And I've spoken to many, many Canadians about the tariffs, and they share his feelings.
They want to fight back.
But Canada has a $2 trillion economy.
The US economy's closer to $30 trillion.
We consume about 20 % of what they produce.
if there is a trade war, I imagine the Canadian unemployment rate could reach 10 % pretty quickly.
In other words, fighting back I think would be extraordinarily painful.
It may be better to cooperate.
I would also point out that Larry Summers' point about acting in your own national interest is exactly what Donald Trump is doing.
Yes, that is definitely the case.
If countries were to impose tariffs, where would they put them?
Would there be particular regions of the US?
That's a question I put to Robert Maxin from the Brookings Institute who's been looking at what areas retaliation tariffs are likely to target in the US.
I think that the takeaway, right, is foreign countries have maps of the US as well.
They know what industries to target that will not only have economic impacts for US businesses, but political ones for both Donald Trump's core supporters and I think the Republican Party writ large.
So which areas are they targeting of the US?
Yeah so you see these foreign tariffs that are impacting places in industries that are really symbolic I think to how Donald Trump fashions himself you know he sees himself as being a champion for rural farmers as bringing jobs back in the manufacturing and fossil fuels sectors those are the places in the industries that other countries are retaliating against, right?
You see Wisconsin, Indiana, Iowa, Arkansas, really all of these swing, Midwest, and Southern states that form the core of Donald Trump's voting block in 2016 and then again in 2024.
Those are the states that are most exposed to these tariffs, and the reason that is is You see agricultural products, manufactured products and fossil fuel energy products being three of the main areas that are being impacted.
We've been here before, haven't we?
In Donald Trump's first administration where we saw retaliatory tariffs from the Chinese.
Did it work? I mean, did it have a political impact?
It depends on what you mean when you say work, right?
So foreign governments are really willing to forego some of their own economic benefits to hurt the US.
These tariffs are likely hurting businesses in China, in Canada, and in the EU just as US tariffs are disrupting US businesses.
But I think that politically, many voters, especially in Canada and the EU, are really willing to back their leaders on this.
They really want to see their leaders standing up to Donald Trump.
This feels different from the first Trump administration in that this seems to be or it seems likely that we could see a much wider spread use of tariffs so that means the retaliatory actions could be a lot bigger.
Will it mainly still be targeting those Republican areas or could Democrat areas be targeted as well?
Well at a certain point you know if we're talking blanket retaliatory tariffs or if we're talking you know what might be potentially reversion to the pre -World War II norm of having tariffs rather than free trade as the basis for global commerce, then pretty much every place is going to be impacted in some regard. And you saw that already, right?
There were Harris voting areas that were absolutely impacted.
But in the US, what I'll say is that there's a distinct geography for some industries, manufacturing, farming, energy.
These communities tend to be places that vote Republican more frequently and they're also the communities that have the most goods that you can export.
And I suppose what we're talking about is that in countries like China that you have people sitting there almost working out county by county which areas are going to be affected the most sitting in front of the US map and say look we need to put tariffs on these areas to hurt Donald Trump the most. I would say it's Not just probably that's happening, my bet is that is what's happening.
This is all public information.
For the US this data is very freely publicly available, and it's quite straightforward to build a lot of these models.
I'm sure foreign countries are doing exactly what you laid out there.
Robert Maxim there.
Chris Lowe still with us.
And, Chris, the market's again wobbly with all these tariff concerns?
Oh, absolutely. Really.
You know, the stock market was down sharply again today.
This week we've been sort of fighting just to get back above where the market was on election day.
Let's talk about Elon Musk.
He says his ex AI startup has acquired the ex social media platform for 33 billion, a bit less than what he paid for it initially.
That's right, a perfect fit, though, because x is the way most users access the grok AI that x .ai runs.
It also takes it off his hands and replenishes his cash at a time when some of his businesses are suffering for political reasons.
Chris, you've got 30 seconds here, why would he sell one company he owns to another company?
Well, because the AI company is much more viable in the marketplace.
It has a higher market cap, and it takes the X platform off his hands, ultimately can become a public company, making him less of a lightning rod for the company itself.
Chris, as always, thank you for joining us on the program.
Good luck following the twists and turns of the market.
China's Foreign Ministry has said it stands ready to do its best to provide emergency humanitarian assistance to me and Amal.
We'll be back with Business Matters.
This is Jenny Garth from I Do Part Two.
If you could lose 10 .4 pounds in one month, would you try?
With Future Health, you can.
Future Health gives millions access to affordable weight loss meds for less than three bucks a day.
Find out if weight loss meds are right for you in just three minutes at try fh .com try f h .com.
results vary based on start weight and adherence to diet exercise and program goals database on independent study sponsored by future health future health is not a healthcare services provider meds are prescribed at provider's discretion.
