on tariffs. And it has been quite a journey.
There were tariffs placed on Mexico and Canada at the beginning of the week.
Then some were withdrawn.
Then even more. Let's remind you then of what has happened.
If you don't make your product in America, however, under the Trump administration, you will pay a tariff and in some cases a rather large one.
Let's be clear. if Trump is imposing tariffs we're ready we are ready with 155 billion dollars worth of tariffs Donald Trump has doubled down on his threat of tariffs saying that time ran out to reach a deal no room left for Mexico or for Canada no the tariffs uh you know they're all set we will stand up for Canadians every single second of every single day US stock markets not surprisingly off the back of the announcement from the White House that these tariffs would be going ahead responded pretty badly.
This is in soccer terms, it's a known goal, but if you want it in American parlance, it's a self -inflicted wound.
It's his second climb down in as many days.
Over the imposition of trade tariffs, first Donald Trump rode back in relation to Mexico.
In the last couple of hours, Canada has also won a reprieve on goods covered in a trade agreement with the US, Mr Trump says the recent dramatic falls in financial markets, crashing to their lowest level since November last year, has nothing to do with his change of heart.
No, nothing to do with the market.
I'm not even looking at the market because long term, the United States will be very strong with what's happening here.
Now, these are countries and companies, foreign companies that have been ripping us off.
And no president did anything about it until I came along.
And then I did a lot about it.
Some of the key voices and some of the news headlines that we've heard over the past five days.
We're going to hear from a former advisor to Donald Trump in a minute, but I want to bring in George Conboy first, chairman of Brighton Securities, often in the US, in Singapore at the moment, but still closely following the markets.
And it has been a turbulent week, hasn't it, George?
More turbulence than we had in the air coming here to Singapore, Rahul.
Good morning. Good morning.
And do you expect that turbulence to continue?
Because we know that Donald Trump is talking about reciprocal tariffs coming in on April the 2nd.
Right. Yeah, I do. I do.
A body in motion tends to stay in motion is one of the principles of physics.
And Donald Trump has shown us a consistency in being inconsistent.
Unfortunately, markets don't like inconsistency.
They don't like not knowing where to expect things are going to head and that has led directly to volatility across the board.
It has indeed, not just in the U .S., but globally as well.
Let's speak to someone or hear from someone who knows Donald Trump very well.
I've been talking to Thomas Philipson, who was a former chair of Donald Trump's Council of Economic Advisers during his first term.
Europe is one issue and then the border countries of Canada and Mexico is a different issue.
The border countries.
The issue is really a drug war as opposed to a trade war.
The president is really concerned about, you know, 100 ,000 people a year dying of drug overdoses in the U .S.
That supply coming in mostly from the southern border and Mexico, but also from the northern border as well.
But it's very little from the northern border, isn't it?
Yeah, it's very little compared to the southern border.
That's true. But he wants to take strong action on not only the drug trade but also illegals coming in from the northern border which I agree the southern border is the biggest problem but it's not as much a trade issue war as opposed to a drug war in my opinion with Europe I think it's much more a reciprocity issue which you'll see April 2nd they are tariffing us a lot more than we are doing to them so essentially the U .S.
is the victim not the criminal when it comes to tariffs, and his goal is to level that playing failing.
That is the goal, but some would say this week the flip -flopping of policies was an indication that actually Donald Trump is watching the markets very closely, and when they react badly, he changes policy.
I think it's more what he's getting, which is not clear from the public information that's coming out, I think.
What is he getting or not for extending, you know, a month from this industry or extending a month from that country, essentially, is what he's getting in return.
He's obviously using this as a negotiation tool to get what he wants, to have leverage in negotiations.
But returning to the question of the markets, you have worked closely with him.
He does follow the markets, doesn't he?
So when he says, oh, I'm not looking at them at all, Do you believe that?
No, I mean, he obviously knows what's going on in the market, but I also think it doesn't allow that to shape his long run goals of his policies, which are very, very clear.
He wants to stop the influx of illegal immigrants, not the influx of legal immigrants.
He has a lot of policies to try to stimulate job creation by legal immigrants through this gold visa, etc. But it's hard for businesses.
We've spoken to many businesses this week, both in the US and many in Mexico as well, who say, look, it's really difficult to plan policies when we don't know what the tariff situation is going to be.
Yeah, I view that as a short run phenomenon, that there's uncertainty in the tariff levels.
It's clearly an increased uncertainty in the tariff levels.
The US has benefited from this trading system that we have in place.
It would be wrong to say it hasn't.
No, but we are getting treated worse, I mean, by other countries than they are treating us.
we're allies in geopolitical and military sense we're certainly not allies in an economic sense in the sense that they are treating us a lot worse than we're treating them thoughts on what has happened this week and what we may see ahead of us we've had further reaction as well in the last few hours the chairman of the u .s central bank the federal reserve jerome powell has highlighted uncertainty over president trump's trade policies in a speech in new york he said he could afford to wait for greater greater clarity before taking decisions on monetary policy despite tumbling stock markets and a loss
of consumer confidence so if you put that in the context of tariffs if you look at where forecasts are look at the blue chip look where everybody is forecasting some inflation effect from tariffs so it's very likely that that if tariffs are imposed and we let's remember we really don't know what's what's happening yet But the likelihood is that some of that will find its way.
You know, it'll hit the exporters, the importers, the retailers, and to some extent the consumers.
And we'll see what that is.
George, Donald Trump won't have liked those comments, will he, from Jerome Powell, but they reflect what a lot of people think.
Right. I'll go back to your previous guest.
And one of the things he did point out that I agree with is these problems are mostly short term problems.
Volatility in interest rates, volatility in imports and tariffs.
Those things affect the short term.
If the policy is successful, longer term should be better.
But in the end, markets always adjust.
Interest rates go up.
It unsettles certain sectors.
Those sectors adjust to rates, most of them, and economies will go on.
Economies tend to be self -adjusting.
But in the short run, that's a very bumpy ride.
It certainly is. Stay with us, George.
We know that tariffs aren't good for many businesses, but they can benefit some America's Ports have been busy as companies try and stockpile on products before these tariffs come into place.
I've been speaking to Noel Hasegeber, the chief operating officer of Long Beach Port, which in January this year was the busiest in the US.
The last eight months, Raul, we've seen record levels of container activity that we've never seen.
In fact, 2024 was a record year for us, and that string continued into 2025.
January 2025 for us was our busiest January ever.
And as you know, January normally productivity dips because of the strong holiday season and the run up to Lunar New Year.
But January turned out to be one of our strongest on record.
And that's in large part because of strong consumer demand that started to taper at the beginning of this year, but remained pretty strong.
And a lot of front loading by shippers trying to get ahead of tariffs.
That was the question I was going to come to, that front loading of shipping because of tariffs.
Is that still continuing at the moment?
Well, so far, when you look at our container movements, the fact that January was one of our strongest months on record, that's a pretty good signal that front loading continues.
When you say that front loading is still busy, how busy is it?
Could you give us some numbers?
How much busier were you this January than you were last January?
So in January of 2025, our container volumes were 41 .4 % ahead of January 2024.
So we were 41 .4 % for the month of January year over year.
There are many businesses that are struggling.
We've been speaking to lots of them because of the flip flopping on tariffs.
You're not one of them.
But once we have a policy, a final policy in place, maybe April the 2nd is that day.
Are you expecting to see business slow down rapidly?
I think the uncertainty is driving a lot of what I would call overreaction, right?
Everyone is trying to read the tea leaves and they're trying to come up with strategies to best position their businesses, right, for potential tariffs.
And I think what's important here is that we recognize that we're probably not going to give uncertainty anytime soon until at least the world almost moving into a tariff war, aren't we?
Obviously, from a macroeconomic standpoint, yes, we've never seen anything quite like this.
When you translate that into the global supply chain, its capacity, its resilience and its validity, that's what I'm referring to.
There are these reports, aren't there, that there may be a decision by the Trump administration to impose higher port fees on Chinese built vessels.
Could that affect your port?
Any type of additional fee or additional cost will have a tendency to impact the flow of cargo.
You have to keep in mind that cargo follows a path of least resistance.
It doesn't matter what the source of disruption is.
Anytime there's an impact to the flow of goods, you're going to see that cascading effect.
It's important to also understand that port activity is a pretty good barometer of trade trends and economic activity.
Goods movement is literally the economy in motion and anything, whether it's a supply chain crisis induced by a pandemic or the threat of new tariffs, anything that disrupts goods movement will inevitably impact economic trends and trade trends and trade activity.
Fascinating there to hear from the Chief Operating Officer of Long Beachport, which was the busiest in the US, in January.
You're with World Business Report from the BBC World Service.
Hello, I'm Robin Ince.
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 on.
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.
There's a lot going on in the world of cryptocurrencies.
Donald Trump has been hosting crypto leaders after creating a strategic reserve of bitcoin and others on Thursday and he had this to say today last year I promised to make America the bitcoin superpower of the world and the crypto capital of the planet and we're taking historic action to deliver on that promise as you know around the table yesterday I signed an executive order officially creating our strategic bitcoin reserve and this will be a virtual fort knocks for digital gold to be housed within the United States Treasury.
That's a big thing.
Veronica Irwin is a New York based, fairly conservative in terms of all of the ideas that people had been throwing around and wondering if the president would entertain, because it is based on just holding on to the currencies the United States government already has in its possession.
Veronica, stay with us for a minute.
I want to bring in George George, here.
There are many within the financial world who are still a little bit skeptical of cryptocurrencies.
When you have a president who seems to be embracing them, does that view begin to change?
I think so. I think so, Rahul.
I'm in the crypto camp myself.
Not a big crypto guy, but why ignore an asset class that is gaining in popularity globally?
I'm not certain I want the federal government to be involved in holding crypto on my behalf as a citizen.
But the idea that we should at least accept crypto as an asset class more broadly, I think is a good one.
Veronica, final thoughts from you.
Will we reach a stage, do you think, during the Trump administration where they will look to buy significant chunks of Bitcoin to add to this reserve?
I really cannot predict on that.
And I do want to echo what George said as well.
When I'm talking about the reserve and the other currencies, there were a lot of questions about donors.
But I do think a lot of people also look to this industry as something that the US government should embrace and create regulatory clarity for and support the innovation of.
But to answer your question, when it comes to adding additional cryptocurrencies to its reserves, we'll just have to wait and see.
We will. It's a very comprehensive, well -thought -out maternity leave for WTA Tour players who want to have a child, maybe in their mid to late 20s or 30s.
And I'm also really grateful that they also have a program for female athletes who want to freeze their eggs, because that is another process.
It's obviously not as long as a maternity leave, but it is a process that requires you to step away.
And also it's expensive.
When you were on the tour, do you think a lot of female tennis players made the decision to say, look, I'm not going to have kids at the moment because financially it could have been a struggle for them?
Well, I think for sure it impacted the number of women tennis players back in say 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s that had had kids.
In fact, in my 19 year career, the one that I can think of that was closest to me was Liz Smiley from Australia.
And when she had her child, literally all of us on the tour, we had hardly been around a child.
We didn't know what a baby looked like.
But now I'm really in And the last like from Kim Clysters is actually here in Indian Wells.
And she really started, I think, this modern day trend in 2009.
She came back when the U .S.
Open became the first female tennis player to win a major as a mom since Yvonne Goulagong had almost 30 years prior.
And since Kim Clysters in 2009, you know, it's just each and every three, four or five years, the numbers have been growing.
And obviously, high -profile athletes like Azarenka, Serena Williams, Angie Kerber, now Kvitova is coming back.
Ben Cicch, gold medalist from Tokyo Games, has just had a baby and played great tennis.
And Svitolina from Ukraine, she's an example of having had maternity leave and come back and played some of the best tennis of her entire career after having a baby.
So I feel like the culture and the acceptance and it's so much more available and accepted.
And there's a roadmap of how to have a baby, have a maternity leave, be funded and then come back and resume your career.
It's going to be important, not just for tennis, but for other sports to look at this as well and to go through that culture change as well.
It is happening in other sports, but slowly.
Well, that's right.
I mean, most workplaces in the US, you get some paid maternity leave.
tennis and being an athlete and having a baby, it obviously keeps you away from your workplace for a little bit longer.
Because, you know, in order to get back to the workplace, you need to be in that top physical form, top shape, get back, you know, to where you were so you don't get injured.
And you don't want to rush back, right?
You don't want to rush back because of finances.
That's like a big mistake that can be made.
So this way, I feel like it takes the pressure off.
you can end quite well and I'm optimistic.
Pam Shriver there, George Still with us, George Comba.
It's a question for many sports, isn't it?
Funding at the moment and when you have the Saudi Arabians with a lot of money they want to put it into sport, but it can lead to questions being asked.
It can, but if sports has become a business, I think it's fair to say it has, you want to run your business like a business and that means treating your employees, your members your players however you want to refer to them treating them well you got to give them benefits if you want to attract them and keep them and when there's competition in this case the saudis it's going to bring up the level of comp overall including benefits for those players george enjoy your time in singapore thanks so much for getting up early for us we'll be back with business matters but that is it for world business
report Hello, I'm Robin Ince 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 vs. 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.
