And Türkiye’s capital has been hit by a magnitude 6.2 earthquake.
Happy Thursday and welcome to your morning wrap of the latest business and political headlines from around the world.
First up, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has hinted there is a path towards the de-escalation of tariffs between the United States and China.
CNBC reported that Bessent said: “there is an opportunity for a big deal here” on trade issues between the two countries.
“If they want to rebalance, let’s do it together,” Bessent said during an appearance at the Institute of Finance in Washington, DC.
He also said the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank have suffered from “mission creep” and the focus of these institutions needs to be recentred.
The Wall Street Journal reported the White House was considering cutting tariff levels to as low as 50% on Chinese imports but a White House spokesperson dismissed any reports as “pure speculation”. They said any news on tariffs would come from US President Donald Trump himself.
The conciliatory tone pushed Wall Street’s main indices higher, as they rose between 1.2% and 3%.
European markets also rose on the news.
Staying with the United States, Trump has accused his Ukrainian counterpart of harming peace negotiations with “inflammatory statements”, according to the BBC.
Volodymyr Zelensky told a news conference on Tuesday that Kyiv would not recognise Russian control of Crimea. Trump said these comments “would do nothing but prolong” the conflict.
It comes after US Vice-President JD Vance said the US would “walk away” from its position as peace broker if Russia and Ukraine did not come to an agreement. A key part of the US proposal involves recognising Crimea, which was annexed illegally by Russia in 2014.
US Vice-president JD Vance.
Moving to Türkiye, where a magnitude 6.2 earthquake struck off the coast of Istanbul. CNN reported that local authorities said there has been no loss of life but 151 people were injured after “jumping from heights due to panic”.
No residential buildings were damaged but one abandoned building in the city collapsed.
To India, where the country’s government has closed a key land border with Pakistan, cancelled a water-sharing agreement, and barred Pakistani citizens from entering under visa exemptions following an attack by Islamic militants in Kashmir that killed 26 domestic tourists.
According to The Guardian, India’s defence minister Rajnath Singh said those who carried out the attack, including those “behind the scenes”, would see a swift response.
The Kashmir Resistance, a little-known militant group, has claimed responsibility for the attack but Pakistan has denied any involvement.
There has been a long-running insurgency in the Muslim-majority region since 1989, although violence has waned in recent years.
In business news, Tesla boss Elon Musk has pledged to reduce his role in the US government after the electric car maker reported a large drop in profit and sales to start the year. Musk has led the Department for Government Efficiency (Doge) since last year, where he has looked to cut US spending.
But he said his commitments to Doge would “drop significantly” from next month amid concerns he has taken his focus off of Tesla, whose shares are down as much as 40% this year.
Elon Musk.
The European Union has fined Apple and Meta hundreds of millions of euros for breaching the bloc’s digital competition laws.
According to CNBC, the European Commission said it was fining Apple €500 million and Meta €200m for breaching the Digital Markets Act.
Apple failed to comply with “anti-steering” laws that require the company to allow developers to freely inform consumers of alternative offers outside its App store.
Apple plans to appeal the fine, saying the announcement was “yet another example of the European Union unfairly targeting Apple”.
For Meta, the EU Commission found the social media giant illegally required users to consent to sharing their data with the company or pay for an ad-free service.
The company’s chief of global affairs, Joel Kaplan, said the commission was “attempting to handicap successful American businesses while allowing Chinese and European companies to operate under different standards”.
