18/06/2025

BIZ & FINANCE WEDNESDAY | JUNE 18, 2025

17

G7 leaders urge Trump to ease off trade war

WSJ: OpenAI weighs antitrust accusation against Microsoft NEW YORK: OpenAI executives have considered accusing Microsoft, the company’s major backer, of anticompetitive behaviour in their partnership, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday, citing people familiar with the matter. OpenAI’s effort could involve seeking a federal regulatory review of the terms of its contract with Microsoft for potential violations of antitrust law, as well as a public campaign, the report said. Such a move could unravel one of the most pivotal tech partnerships in the fast-growing field of artificial intelligence. OpenAI needs Microsoft’s approval to complete its transition into a public-benefit corporation but the two have not been able to agree on details even after months of negotiations, sources said. The companies are discussing revising the terms of Microsoft’s investment, including the future equity stake it will hold in OpenAI, according to the sources. Separately, The Information reported that OpenAI wants Microsoft to hold a 33% stake in a restructured unit in exchange for foregoing rights to future profits, citing a person who spoke to OpenAI executives. The ChatGPT owner wants to modify existing clauses that give Microsoft exclusive rights to host OpenAI models in its cloud, the report added. Microsoft has not agreed to OpenAI’s proposed terms and is reportedly seeking additional concessions from the startup, said The Information . Microsoft invested US$1 billion in OpenAI in 2019 to support the startup’s development of AI technologies on its Azure cloud platform. Since then, however, OpenAI has been looking for ways to reduce its reliance on the tech heavyweight. – Reuters Nvidia to attend China supply-chain expo for first time BEIJING: Nvidia will attend a major supply-chain expo in July in Beijing for the first time, Chinese state broadcaster CCTV reported yesterday. The third edition of the China International Supply Chain Expo will be held from July 16 to 20 and will welcome more than 230 new Chinese and foreign participants, CCTV reported. Nvidia is having to defend its decreasing share of the Chinese market while complying with increasingly strict US export controls aimed at curbing China’s access to the types of advanced chips the firm manufactures. The expo is not known to deliver big deals. However, it provides an opportunity for foreign participants to demonstrate commitment to the Chinese market. Premier Li Qiang spoke at the expo’s opening edition in 2023, highlighting the reliability of Chinese supply chains at a time when some Western countries were calling to reduce dependence on China. Trade disputes with the US in particular have since intensified. Even so, US firms will represent the largest contingent of foreign businesses at this year’s expo, with an increase of 15% compared to last year, CCTV reported. – Reuters

agreement on the package as a whole,” Ishiba said. There were hopes that non-G7 countries expected at the meeting later this week would also have their time with Trump, but this was dashed by the US leader’s decision to cut his attendance short due the Iran crisis. Leaders from South Korea, India, Brazil, and South Africa will arrive at the gathering at a resort in the Canadian Rockies with Trump already gone. Dozens of countries are locked in negotiations with Washington to clinch some sort of trade deal before the US imposes stinging reciprocal tariffs, threatened for July 9. A source at the summit said that French President Emmanuel Macron urged the American leader to quickly end the trade conflict once and for all. The European Commission handles trade negotiations for the 27-country bloc, and the EU’s trade chief Maros Sefcovic was also attending the summit, accompanying the delegation of EU Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen. The EU institutions are official members of the G7, and during the morning session, von der Leyen argued to the leaders that “tariffs – no matter who sets them – are ultimately a tax paid by consumers and businesses at home”. Von der Leyen also met with Trump one-on-one on trade issues in a sit-down that US officials said was at her request. “We instructed the teams to accelerate their work to strike a good and fair deal. Let’s get it done,” she said in a post on X. – AFP

They argued that the dispute weakens the G7’s economies and “in the end will only strengthen China”, the official said. Trump used the meeting to officially sign a deal already announced in May with Britain, the first country to secure a trade pact with the US to avoid Trump’s threat of the crushing levies. “I like them. That’s the ultimate protection,” Trump told reporters after a meeting with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on the G7 sidelines. At a media conference marking the deal, Trump opened a folder to display the signed agreement, only for the paperwork to slide out and spread across the ground. “Oops, sorry about that,” he said as Starmer scrambled to gather up the loose sheets and stuff them back in the folder. The trade issue is of urgent interest to Canada after the Trump administration announced several additional levies on Canadian imports in recent months, throwing the economic future of America’s northern neighbour into deep uncertainty. After a meeting between Trump and Prime Minister Mark Carney, the Canadian government indicated that the two sides could reach a trade truce deal within the next 30 days. Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba told reporters in Canada that he spoke to Trump for 30 minutes and discussed ways they could find a solution “in a manner that is in line with Japan’s national interests”, according to Japanese public broadcaster NHK. “As there are still some points where both sides disagree, we have not reached an

KANANASKIS: World leaders at the Group of Seven summit in Canada on Monday pushed US President Donald Trump to back away from his punishing trade war, arguing that it poses a risk to global economic stability. At a summit where host Canada worked to avoid stoking Trump’s anger, and with attention on events in the Middle East, leaders still urged the US president to reverse course on his plans to impose even steeper tariffs on countries across the globe as early as next month. Most countries represented at the G7 are already subject to a 10% baseline tariff imposed by Trump, with European countries and Japan also hit with additional levies on cars, steel, and aluminum. G7 leaders used the meeting to sit down with Trump one-on-one to make their case for the America president to seal agreements that would eliminate the worse of the US tariff threat. In official sessions, the leaders also warned Trump that the tariffs could bring serious harm to the world economy. “Several participants asked to end the tariff dispute as soon as possible,” a senior German official told reporters on condition of anonymity. o They warn that steep tariffs pose risk to global economic stability

Starmer picking up US-UK trade deal papers dropped by Trump as they speak to reporters during the G7 Summit at the Pomeroy Kananaskis Mountain Lodge. – AFPPIC

Rise in ‘harmful content’ since Meta policy rollbacks: Survey WASHINGTON: Harmful content including hate speech has surged across Meta’s platforms since the company ended third-party fact-checking in the United States and eased moderation policies, a survey showed on Monday. The survey of around 7,000 active users on Instagram, Facebook and Threads comes after the Palo Alto company ditched US fact-checkers in January and turned over the task of debunking falsehoods to ordinary users under a model known as “Community Notes”, popularised by X. The decision was widely seen as an attempt to appease President Donald Trump’s new administration, whose conservative support base has long complained that fact-checking on tech platforms was a way to curtail free speech and censor right-wing content. Meta also rolled back restrictions around topics such as gender and sexual identity. The tech giant’s updated community guidelines said its platforms would permit users to accuse people of “mental illness” or “abnormality” based on their gender or sexual orientation. “These policy shifts signified a dramatic reversal of content moderation standards the company had built over nearly a decade,” said the survey published by digital and human rights groups including UltraViolet, GLAAD, and All Out. “Among our survey population of approximately 7,000 active users, we found stark evidence of increased harmful content, decreased freedom of expression and increased self-censorship.” One in six respondents in the survey reported being the victim of some form of gender-based or sexual violence on Meta platforms, while 66% said they had witnessed harmful

content such as hateful or violent material. Of surveyed users, 92% said they were concerned about increasing harmful content and felt“less protected from being exposed to or targeted by” such material on Meta’s platforms. Seventy-seven per cent of respondents described feeling “less safe” expressing themselves freely. The company declined to comment on the survey. – AFP