The infoshot to help kick-start your week
Tariff deals with Japan and EU announced
On Tuesday, Japan and the US announced a trade agreement that Trump heralded as the “largest trade deal in history”.
In return, Japan will invest $550bn into the US, and according to Trump, the US “will receive 90% of the profits.” The investment is expected to be made via equity and loan support to Japanese business investments in pharmaceuticals, critical minerals and semiconductors. However, reporting in the days since seems to suggest that Japanese officials believe there’s no legally binding agreement for this profit arrangement, and a slideshow presented by Japan’s Cabinet Office on Friday contradicts Trump’s profit ratio saying the distribution will be “based on the degree of contribution and risk taken by each party”.
Regardless of the deal’s contradictions, the news sent the Nikkei up 3.7% on the day. It did mellow out slightly to finish the week up just below 3%.
While visiting Scotland this weekend, Trump also reached a trade agreement with the EU. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Trump agreed a tariff on all EU exports to the US of 15% – half of the 30% rate Trump had threatened to implement. Markets are up this morning following the news, with the FTSE 100 reaching a record high of 9,165 shortly after opening.
The EU will now also invest $600bn on US military equipment and spend $750bn on US energy over the next three years. According to von der Leyen, the energy investment will help reduce European reliance on Russian energy sources. The 50% tariff on steel and aluminium will stay in place.
The US have now secured tariff agreements with the EU, UK, Japan, Indonesia, Philippines and Vietnam, but they’re still some way off Trump’s goal of “90 deals in 90 days”.
Trump’s infamous signature unleashes AI, as OpenAI enters UK schools and hospitals
In the long run (and from an existential perspective), possibly the most consequential Trump signatures this week were written on Wednesday when he signed three executive orders related to AI that the White House claims will “solidify its position as the leader in AI”.
The AI Action Plan outlines 90 policy actions for the US government and the AI industry to implement this year. Federal agencies will be tasked with reviewing and repealing policies that hold back AI development, and they will be encouraged to increase AI usage in both the public and private sector. The order also aims to tackle supposedly “ideologically biased” AI systems and promote international exports of US AI tech. Trump rescinded the safety and security standards governing the use of AI on day one of his second term – these orders contain nothing to replace this.
In what was already a good week for major AI companies, here in the UK the government gave OpenAI an additional win by signing a deal to use their AI technology in UK public services. OpenAI will now expand its London office as it potentially starts to use government data to see its software unleashed in schools, healthcare, defence and the legal system.
Conversely, there was bad news for news companies as two reports were released demonstrating the “devasting impact” AI summaries on search results are having on visits. The analytics company Authoritas found that a site ranked first in a search result could lose 79% of its clicks if it’s shown below an AI overview, and a second study by US thinktank, the Pew Research Center found users only clicked a news link under an AI summary once every hundred times.
Coming Up:
- US GDP Q2, Wednesday 30 July 2025 at 13:30pm
- Fed interest rate decision, Wednesday 30 July 2025 at 19:00pm
- China manufacturing PMI, Thursday 31 July 2025 at 02:30am
Notice:
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