Hello and welcome to World Business Report from the BBC World Service.
I'm Roger Hearing and on this edition the US and Jordan disagree on the future of Gaza.
But how dependent is Jordan on American aid?
Also condemnation of US steel and aluminium tariffs from Canada, Mexico and the EU.
We hear about a boycott of American goods in Canada.
Cleaning up a lake in Guatemala to win back tourists.
and the diss track row between two of the world's biggest rappers.
But is it really just a way of selling more music?
But first, it was a tense moment at the White House.
King Abdullah of Jordan sat down with Donald Trump, the man who had threatened to withhold $1 .45 billion of aid each year from the US, unless he agreed to help take in the almost 2 million Palestinians from Gaza.
It was all smiles in the Oval Office, but there was clearly a difference of views.
King Abdullah had previously rejected the resettlement idea, saying his country's at boiling point as it already hosts millions of refugees.
But he revealed his own plan to evacuate 2 ,000 children from Gaza who were in urgent need of medical care.
We have to keep in mind that there is a plan from Egypt and the Arab countries.
We're being invited by Mohammed bin Salman to discussions in Riyadh.
I think the point is how do we make this work in a way that is good for everybody?
Obviously, we have to look at the best interests of the United States, of the people in the region, especially to my people of Jordan, and we're going to have some interesting discussions today.
I think one of the things that we can do right away is take 2 ,000 children that are either cancer children or in a very ill state to Jordan as quickly as possible and then wait for, I think, the Egyptians to present their plan on how we can work with the president to work on the Gaza challenges.
That was King Abdullah of Jordan, and Mr Trump himself backed down on his earlier threat on the aid.
I don't want to say that because we've had such a good relationship and we're doing so well just in the short time that we've been talking.
Now, I think we'll do something.
I don't have to threaten with money.
We do. We contribute a lot of money to Jordan and to Egypt, by the way, a lot to both.
But I don't have to threaten that.
I don't think I think we're above that.
But as always, with this US administration, there is still nothing absolutely clear about what will happen and what Jordan is expected to do.
So how vulnerable is Jordan to US pressure?
How essential is Washington's aid?
That was King Abdullah of Jordan and Mr Trump himself backed down on his earlier threat on the aid.
I don't want to say that because we've had such a good relationship and we're doing so well just in the short time that we've been talking.
No, I think we'll do something.
I don't have to threaten with money.
We do. We contribute a lot of money to Jordan and to Egypt, by the way, a lot to both.
But I don't have to threaten that.
I don't think I think we're above that.
Ben, as always with this U .S.
administration, there is still nothing absolutely clear about what will happen and what Jordan is expected to do.
So how vulnerable is Jordan to U .S.
pressure how essential is washington's aid to its economy i'm joined now by ahmed sharawi who's a research analyst at the foundation for the defense of democracies in washington adhamed thanks for being with us here on world business report and i i said that amount of 1 .45 billion dollars but at the moment
even that is suspended isn't it uh hello thank you thank you for having me um yes that is suspended under the executive order that was signed earlier in february that freezes all foreign aid, except for Israel and Egypt.
$1 .45 billion have been freezed that were supposed to be sent to Jordan for the next 90 days.
Now, how important is this money to Jordan?
I mean, just for people who don't know, what is it that powers the Jordanian economy?
How much of a contribution is this to the Jordanian economy?
So, Jordan is the top three recipient of US foreign aid.
It is very dependent on USAID.
Of course, it is diversified in terms of USAID goes to the Jordanian military, to Jordan's infrastructure, mainly the healthcare system, the educational system, agriculture, as well as solving the water security issue in Jordan.
So all in all, Well, Jordan is very dependent on US aid and the freezing will take a significant toll on the country's economy.
So what other elements are there in the economy?
Does Jordan manufacture?
Does it export? What goes on?
It doesn't have oil, does it?
Jordan is not a resourceful country when it comes to natural resources like oil and natural gas.
and so jordan has been i mean throughout the years has been very dependent on money coming in from the u .s from european partners as well as from the gulf and but at the same time jordan relies on its on its tourism sector which has also taken a significant hit over the past 15 years 15 months as it
does not jordan jordan is not a resourceful country when it comes to natural resources like oil and natural gas and so Jordan has been throughout the years has been very dependent on money coming in from the US from European partners as well as from the Gulf but at the same time Jordan relies on its
tourism sector which has also taken a significant hit over the past 15 months as a result of the war in Gaza um security issues um in in that very dangerous neighborhood has had a negative impact on on jordan's ability to attract more visitors and thus this had this has impacted the jordan economy very
significantly and it's not just the us that it's beholden to there's a lot of money i think coming through from from other arab rich arab countries the the saudis for example and so again it has to have a kind of balancing operation to keep the country going, doesn't it?
Yes. I mean, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states invest a lot in terms of projects in Jordan.
But the U .S. has been a consistent partner in supporting Jordan economically.
As I said, Jordan's military receives a lot of military aid from the United States.
And this freeze of aid will significantly impact Jordan's ability to secure its borders, which have been flashpoints for smuggling operations from Syria before the fall of Assad, as well as from the border with Israel and the West Bank.
Now, King Abdullah mentioned the number of refugees that are in Jordan already.
And that, I guess, is a bit of a drain on the economy, potentially.
I know over half the population, in fact, originate from the Palestinian territories originally.
So there's a lot of complications that are affecting the economy.
Absolutely. And with the influx of the Syrian refugees after 2011, the Jordanian economy took a significant hit in terms of resource allocation, as well as creating jobs.
Jordan's unemployment rate is at 25%.
Youth unemployment is at 50%.
And so there are multiple factors.
Of course, the regional dynamics don't help.
But the refugee crisis in Jordan has played a very important role in the weakening of Jordan's economy.
So King Abdullah, speaking to the US president, is going to have to be keen to maintain that aid and hopefully getting it unfrozen in order to keep the economy going now?
Absolutely. And I believe that President Trump's comments today regarding that he will not be using or leveraging foreign aid against Jordan or Egypt is a result of these discussions.
I think King Abdullah made it clear that Jordan is very dependent.
Jordan's stability is dependent on American aid and that this freeze or this potential halt of American funds to the Hashemite Kingdom will only result in the destabilization of the country.
Ahmed Sharawi, thank you so much for being with us, Ahmed Sharawi there, the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies in Washington.
Now, staying with Donald Trump on Tuesday, of course, today, the countries that are affected by Donald Trump's decision to impose tariffs got together to complain about it.
Mexico, Canada and the European Union united in condemning these tariffs on all steel and aluminium imports, which come in next month.
The Mexican Economy Minister Marcelo Ebrard called the tariff decision not justified and unfair.
The Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the tariffs were, quotes, unacceptable.
And the European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the EU would take firm and proportionate countermeasures.
But Canada seems to be the country most affected by all this, at least at the moment.
And there is something of a backlash there.
As I heard from Marilyn Dibb, she's operations manager at Cedars & Co Food Market, a store based in Ottawa.
She's seen shoppers boycotting US goods.
Yes, we are noticing a significant decrease of those not purchasing whatsoever.
What sort of things would they be that there would be American products there?
We have things such as Amy's Soups, Bob's Red Mill, for instance.
We have American Produce.
We have American Rice by Lundberg.
There is a vast potato chip collection as well from Kettlebran chip all the way to beverage that is American that is being ignored in my store presently.
And what sort of percentage of what you sell comes from America?
Approximately 20 % right now because we have depleted quite a bit of it.
We are also going to be donating a good portion of it to the food bank.
And we had somebody actually just come in to say that he was interested in donating much of it to the food bank today.
That's interesting.
And what are people talking to you and saying why they're not buying American stuff?
They are not options for them now that we have brought in.
And are people really quite angry about this?
Is there a feeling of, I don't know, anti -Americanism almost?
I have to say that we have always been a neighbouring country to America, but Canadians as a whole are feeling more than taxed on this.
And they are not very happy about the decision to run these very high tariffs at this time.
What do you feel? I mean, you're Canadian.
Do you do you feel it as well?
I do feel it. It has been a very hard hit post 2020.
We had huge lockdowns at our borders, and we had to transition very quickly.
And then to come out of that and then into tariff mode at 25 % from aluminum to steel to lumber, now groceries and everything else across the board is just, it doesn't make sense to us.
So I'm very upset about it, yes.
Will you stop buying American things as well?
I will try my best to stop purchasing any American.
However, there are single pockets here and there of things that are not readily available in Canada at this time.
But it doesn't mean that our other foreign countries, the UK, who has been a partner in Canada, that they do not have these things readily available for us.
So I will do significant outreach to get out there, to bring what we need into Canada, to make sure that they are well fed, nourished and they feel comfortable, especially with a price point.
Marilyn Dibb there of Cedars & Co Food Market in Ottawa.
But what about from the US side?
Because exports are going to be hit from there by Canadian retaliatory tariffs.
Let's talk to Chris Swonger, the president and CEO of the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States.
Join us on the line.
Chris, thanks for being with us.
Now, you guys, the spirits, whiskey and other things I imagine going north into Canada.
Well, we've heard there might be a bit of a boycott.
But in any case, it's going to be a really difficult thing if Canada puts on retaliatory sanctions.
Well, thank you for having me.
And really, on behalf of the distilled spirits industry, And I have the privilege to represent many companies that have great Canadian whiskey brands.
And, of course, I represent companies that have American whiskey brands, American distilled spirits, Canadian spirits brands, and so forth.
And the same would apply for Mexico with tequila or our friends in Europe as well.
So, look, the relationship between the United States and Canada has long been, you know, one bond.
And the distilled spirits industry is an industry of one because of the distinctive nature of the products.
Many Americans love Canadian whiskey and have for years.
And Canadians certainly will appreciate American whiskey and American distilled spirits brands.
And that's going to be that's going to make life very difficult, isn't it?
Because you say they like it either side and it's not going to be easy to get it across that border in future.
Well, we certainly appreciate the lady that you just have had on the grocer, you know, plays a very important role.
Look, both the Trump administration and the Trudeau administration have agreed to a 30 day kind of pause on the tariffs.
And hopefully the Canadian government and the Trump administration can work transactionally on some of the issues that President Trump has outlined.
But on behalf of the spirits industry, we hope and we will actively lobby both governments to find middle ground.
So our industry collectively, both in Canada and in the United States, isn't harmed.
So at the moment they're quite worried, it would be fair to say, your members.
Great anxious, anxious on the Canadian side, certainly, and anxious on the U .S.
side. This is an industry where there's no light between us.
Certainly, Canadian whiskey competes for consumers, just like American whiskey does.
But when you bring people of different backgrounds together, whether it's Americans and Canadians at this point or from the other side of the world, If you have a cocktail together, Canadian whiskey or an American whiskey, you can do a cheers.
We support toasts, not tariffs.
OK, we'll end on that point, Chris.
Thanks so much for being with us.
Chris Swonger there of the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States.
You're with World Business Report from the BBC World Series.
Let's talk about what's been going on on the markets.
I'm joined by Ayako Yoshoka, Senior Portfolio Manager with the Wealth Enhancement Group in Los Angeles.
Ayako, thanks for being with us.
with all this business about the tariffs.
How is the U .S. dollar doing actually at the moment?
Sure, Roger. You know, the U .S.
dollar has been on a bit of a tear since late September of last year.
It's up a little over, you know, seven and a half percent.
But so far in 2025, it's come down a little bit, down to about down one percent.
So it's a little bit flatter so far in 2025, but it's up substantially since the lows in September.
The other thing we keep an eye on, quite often is obviously where Treasuries, the US government bonds are.
And I was hearing a little bit earlier that, in fact, there's more caution in that market at the moment.
And what that suggests about confidence in the US government?
Yes, absolutely. All of this talk about tariffs is really reigniting some inflation fears.
And I think that's hitting the bond market as well, especially with the Federal Reserve on hold when it comes to interest rates.
Well, talking of which, of course, we've heard from Mr.
Powell, the head of the Fed, saying he's in no hurry to get interest rates.
How's the market taking that?
Sure. So today it was flat.
And I think the market expects the Fed to be a little bit on the sidelines as we all figure out what the situation is going to be with trade policy and potential impacts on inflation from trade policy changes.
But we'll have to see.
I think the market's still just on edge as to see whether or not these tariffs are negotiating tactics or they'll actually get put in place.
So at the moment, the markets are saying, well, we expect there will be a few more cuts, but perhaps not too soon, maybe.
Correct. Not any time soon.
And we're going to have to be data dependent.
We'll see how it all works out.
Ayako, thanks so much for being with us.
Ayako, Yoshiocha there of the Wealth Enhancement Group in Los Angeles.
Now, Lake Amaticlan in Guatemala was once a popular weekend getaway for the wealthy, but its proximity to the country's capital, Guatemala City, means it's become badly polluted with rubbish and sewage.
Businesses and residents are trying to save the lake and protect the valuable tourist income it provides.
And there are concerns about a second lake in Guatemala, which could be heading the same way, as Jane Chambers reports.
Lake Amatitlan is surrounded by lush green hills and volcanoes.
It used to be a popular tourist attraction, but now the garbage is putting visitors up.
What we have here is all the rubbish that we clear from the Lake Amatitlan.
We have a lot of things like plastic bottles, shoes and old clothes.
We have boats on the lake and use machinery to get the trash out and then put it on the platform that you see in front of you to store the rubbish.
That's engineer Byron Catalan, who's in charge of the lake's cleaning unit.
He's pointing out a huge retention barrier that's more than a mile long.
The line that you can see from our boat is to keep the rubbish from floating into the lake.
My team and I made around $500 ,000, which isn't enough.
The money comes from the government, and we use it for our water monitor in the lab and to hire machinery and equipment to clean up the lake.
I would say that we need more than double what we currently have.
And it's not only about the environmental impact.
The scale of the pollution is affecting local businesses.
Victor Orbina is the general manager at the Santa Teresita Hotel near Lake Amaticlan.
Tourism isn't the same if the lake is the way it is right now.
And Amatimstan has a lot of opportunities to develop tourism all around the lake.
Bicycles, water sports, walking, everything that can go around a clean lake.
I mean, business opportunity, maybe we're losing in a year about maybe three to four million dollars.
right now. I've travelled to a town called San Pedro de la Laguna to see a different lake called Lake Aticlan which is one of the top tourist attractions in Guatemala.
Telsa Jórez lives near the lake.
She's part of a group of indigenous women who come on the last Saturday of each month to clean up the lake.
There are lots of fizzy drink bottles and we want big companies to take responsibility for what they make and to clean it up.
That report from Jane Chambers in Guatemala.
Now, for those of you not into rap music, let me introduce you to diss battles.
It's when two stars attack each other in their songs.
And at the moment, there is one almighty feud going on between Kendrick Lamar and Drake.
It's escalated to the point that Drake is trying to sue his own record company for defamation and harassment and allowing Kendrick to abuse him.
There is an upside, though.
By some estimates, as the story has circulated, their diss tracks have raised over $15 million.
It's escalated even further since Kendrick Lamar performed his most recent controversial track, Not Like Us, at last weekend's Super Bowl.
What is at the core of all this?
I asked Jim Aswad, executive music editor at Variety magazine.
In 2023, Drake had a lyric in one of his songs where he basically equated himself with Kendrick Lamar and J.
Cole. I think either he or someone else called them the big three, the three best rappers.
Well, he said it again, and then J.
Cole said it, and Kendrick took exception.
And in a song called Like That that came out last year that Kendrick was just a guest on, it was a song by Metro Boomin, he said, F the big three, there's just big me.
Drake kept going. So some diss tracks went back and forth between him and Kendrick, and they got increasingly nasty.
Not like us. The song that everybody knows is only one of five of Kendrick's diss tracks against Drake, and they got very, very personal.
And it's only come up again.
it's been mentioned elliptically on kendrick most recent album the song won five grammy and he just played it at the super bowl well indeed and i mean the interesting thing here jim is it's got into the courts because drake i think has actually brought a case hasn't he a case for defamation yeah i mean a case
that is being viewed very skeptically by a lot of people he is not suing kendrick lamar who wrote the song he's suing universal music group the largest record music a company in the entire world which not only distributes his records it distributes kendrick's records as well so he's suing his own record
company yes i mean as if that's going to earn you any friends and you know the thing is it's like he's claiming defamation he's claiming they knew these things weren't true but they released and distributed the songs anyway and thus it's defamatory and it's conceivable that he could win but there's
been three different lawsuits about it He tried to loop in Spotify, but he withdrew that case.
He looped in iHeartRadio, which is the biggest radio network in the United States.
And I guess Drake's trying to get damages on this.
But actually, I've been looking at the figures on this.
I mean, this whole row seems to be generating a lot of money for both of them anyway.
Well, exactly. In all honesty, this lawsuit just makes him look like a sore loser in the eyes of most everyone who's aware of the situation, even if it's found to be defamatory, you know, in which case universal would have to pay damages to their own artist and it's a whole mess.
But like, you know, there's other things in play.
Supposedly Drake's deal with universal is almost up and he's, you know, some people say he's using this for leverage.
I mean, who knows? He's probably reached that level of fame where you're so surrounded by yes men and yes people that you just say something like, I'm going to sue universal.
And they say, yeah, Drake, go ahead.
Yeah. And I mean, one could be cynical, I guess, Jim, and say, is the whole thing just a confection, you know, to get their names in the press, to raise the profile, not they barely needed, and make them all a load of money?
Well, there's, sure, there's that.
And initially, I sent different lawsuits about it.
He tried to loop in Spotify, but he withdrew that case.
He looped in iHeartRadio, which is the biggest radio network in the United States.
And I guess Drake's trying to get damages on this.
But actually, I've been looking at the figures on this.
I mean, this whole row seems to be generating a lot of money for both of them anyway.
Well, exactly. In all honesty, this lawsuit just makes him look like a sore loser in the eyes of most everyone who's aware of the situation, even if it's found to be defamatory, you know, in which case Universal would have to pay damages to their own artist and it's a whole mess.
But like, you know, there's other things in play.
Supposedly Drake's deal with Universal is almost up and he's, you know, some people say he's using this for leverage.
I mean, who knows. He's probably reached that level of fame where you're so surrounded by yes men and yes people that you just say something like, I'm going to sue Universal and they say, yeah, Drake, go ahead.
Yeah. And I mean, one could be cynical, I guess, Jem, and say, is the whole thing just a confection, you know, to get their names in the press, to raise the profile, not they barely needed, and make them all a load of money.
Well, there's sure there's that.
And initially I thought, you know, my initial take on this was that because hip hop has been not in a great place creatively for the last couple of years.
My initial thought was, you know, hey, maybe the two of them conspired and said, hey, you know what the game needs right now?
It needs a good battle.
OK, because actually going back to the 60s, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, they would very carefully like, you know, supposedly there was this big rivalry between them.
but they were actually friends and they would strategically plan their releases and call each other up and say hey you know we're putting out a single on june 6th when's yours scheduled for and they would do it so they wouldn't get in each other's way and i just figured all right maybe this is just
a you know they're trying to do something good for hip -hop but it got so nasty and personal so quickly that that theory kind of went out the went out the window i think kendrick was genuinely offended by that.
And boy, did he say so.
Kendrick finished his Super Bowl performance with, you know, those wristbands that light up that they give out at concerts and sporting events sometimes.
It's spelled out in the stands game over.
He's won five Grammy awards.
He just played the song at the Super Bowl.
How do you top that?
I just, you know, I think they're just going to sort of let the lawsuits kind of fizzle out and i think that'll be that because i mean how do you follow how indeed jim aswad the executive music editor at variety magazine beatles and the rolling stencil i can kind of get the parallel i suppose but it's
kendrick lamar and drake and that's world business report
