China’s US tariffs become a reality

Hello and welcome to the working week.

We start as recent weeks have begun, and could well do for months to come, with a fresh salvo in the tariff war sparked by US President Donald Trump.

On Monday China is set to impose fresh tariffs on American goods in response to Trump’s executive order raising taxes on Chinese imports by 10 per cent. The new Chinese tariffs include a 15 per cent tax on coal and liquefied natural gas and a 10 per cent tax on crude oil, agricultural machinery, and large-engine cars. The excellent Unhedged newsletter (for premium FT subscribers) has a thorough assessment of the likely impact of the measures — more a show of resistance by Beijing than an effort to impose real pain on Americans, at this stage at least.

We move on to another theme for 2025: artificial intelligence. The AI Action Summit, the latest in a series of leadership conferences on the safe development of artificial intelligence, opens in Paris on Monday with Airbus chief executive Guillaume Faury and Microsoft president Brad Smith on the speakers’ roster. Guests expected to attend include US vice-president JD Vance and the leaders of Germany, India and the European Commission. The two-day event follows the AI Safety Summit hosted by the UK in November 2023 and the AI Seoul Summit hosted by South Korea last May. While the politicians discuss AI, business is racing to be the market leader, not least in Silicon Valley as my colleagues on the US west coast explain.

Monday is also Peter Mandelson’s first day in the job as the UK’s ambassador to the US, the top job in British diplomacy. Could the Labour peer and former EU commissioner, who asserts himself as “pro-business” and against the “wokey cokey”, be both the best qualified and worst choice for the job of relating to the Trump administration? FT political editor George Parker’s wide ranging interview with him gives some clues.

Religion and politics will be mixing in London this week as the Church of England’s national assembly of elected lay and clergy members gather for General Synod. This year will be significant because there will be no Archbishop of Canterbury after the messy resignation of the former postholder Justin Welby. The meeting runs until Valentine’s Day, which seems appropriate given that one of the main challenges (and there are many) will be to show that members of the UK’s established church really can display love to one another amid sharp divisions on key moral issues and the hurt following the recent shocking revelations of sexual abuse.

Is data less emotive? There will be a healthy run of economic statistics released over the coming days, especially for Europe, though the figures are likely to reflect the poor health for the economies concerned.

On Friday, the EU publishes its first take on the economic bloc’s growth for the last three months of 2024, a day after the Office for National Statistics publishes its fourth-quarter growth estimate for the UK. Expectations are not high for either, but especially for the UK given the Bank of England’s downgrade of its growth forecasts last week, calculating that British GDP contracted 0.1 per cent in the last three months of 2024.

We might be over the hump of the current earnings season, but the flow of companies reporting this week will continue with a clutch of UK banks, consumer goods and travel businesses publishing their numbers. We also have a run of central bankers speaking at events. More details below.

One more thing . . . 

Regular readers will by now know my generally negative feelings about films that get nominated for awards. But I do love a night out at the flicks and next weekend is the British film industry’s chance to shine with the Bafta ceremony at London’s Royal Festival Hall. Mike Leigh’s Hard Truths is not an easy watch, but I was glad I did if just for the compelling performance of Marianne Jean-Baptiste in the lead role. If she does not win the best leading actress gong this Sunday I will be disappointed. Read the FT review of the film here.

What are your priorities for the week ahead? Email me at jonathan.moules@ft.com or, if you are reading this from your inbox, hit reply.

Key economic and company reports

Here is a more complete list of what to expect in terms of company reports and economic data this week.

Monday

• Bank of England executive director, financial market infrastructure, Sasha Mills will deliver remarks at the Chair/CEO/INEDs Roundtable for UK Financial Market Infrastructure firms

• Iran: Revolution Day. Financial markets closed

• UK: Q3 public service productivity data. Also, KPMG and REC UK Report on Jobs

• US: Conference Board January Employment Trends Index

• Results: Arch Capital Group Q4, DBS Group Q4, Loews Q4, McDonald’s Q4, Mediobanca Banca di Credito Finanziario HY, ON Semiconductor Q4

Tuesday

• Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey gives a keynote speech at the London campus of the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, titled Are we underestimating changes in financial markets?

• France: Q4 labour market figures

• UK: quarterly asset purchase facility report

• US: National Federation of Independent Business January Index of Small Business Optimism

• Results: AIG Q4, Bellway trading update, BP Q4, Coca-Cola Company Q4, Dunelm HY, Edwards Lifesciences Q4, Gilead Sciences Q4, Kering FY, Marriott International Q4, Masco Q4, MJ Gleeson HY, Pitney Bowes Q4, PZ Cussons HY, S&P Global Q4, S & U FY trading update, Tui Group Q1, UniCredit Q4

Wednesday

• Megan Greene, Bank of England monetary policy committee member, speaks on the impact of global developments on the UK at the Institute of Directors in London

• Joachim Nagel, president of the Deutsche Bundesbank, delivers a lecture in London on the natural rate of interest, its measurement, how it evolved over time, the uncertainty around its current level and the implications for policymaking in the coming years

• Bank of America chair and CEO Brian Moynihan to speak at the BofA Securities Financial Services Conference in New York. Also available to watch online.

• OPEC Monthly Oil Market Report

• EU: January harmonised index of consumer prices (HICP) inflation rate data

• US: January consumer price index (CPI) inflation rate data. Also, January real earnings figures

• Results: Ahold Delhaize Q4, Albemarle Q4, Aker BP Q4, Barratt Redrow HY, Barrick Gold Q4, Commonwealth Bank of Australia HY, Computershare HY, CVS Health Q4, Deutsche Boerse Q4, EssilorLuxottica FY, Heineken FY, IAC Q4, Interpublic Q4, Kraft Heinz Q4, MGM Resorts International Q4, Michelin FY, Randstad Q4, Reddit Q4, Secom Q3, Smurfit Westrock FY, SoftBank Q3, Sumitomo Metal Mining Q3, Tenet Healthcare Q4, Yamaha Motor Company FY

Thursday

• IEA Monthly Oil Market Report

• EU: December industrial production figures. Also, European Central Bank’s latest economic bulletin

• Germany: January CPI and HICP inflation rate data

• UK: preliminary December and Q4 GDP estimates. Also, RICS Residential Market Survey

• UK: December construction output in Great Britain

• US: January producer price index (PPI) inflation rate data

• Results: Airbnb Q4, Applied Materials Q1, Barclays FY, British American Tobacco FY, Commerzbank Q4, Deere & Co Q1, Delivery Hero Q4 trading update, Duke Energy Q4, Embracer Group Q3, Finnair Q4, Hanesbrands Q4, Honda Q3, Iron Mountain Q4, Legrand FY, Moncler FY, Nestlé FY, Nissan Q3, Norwegian Air Q4, Orange FY, Palo Alto Networks Q2, PG&E Q4, Renishaw HY, Siemens Q1, Sony Q3, Sun Life Financial Q4, Tate & Lyle Q3 trading statement, Thyssenkrupp Q1, Unilever FY

Friday

• EU: preliminary Q4 GDP estimate

• US: January industrial production figures

• Results: Hermès FY, Hydro Q4, Ingersoll Rand Q4, Leggett & Platt Q4, Mirvac HY, Moderna Q4, NatWest FY, Segro FY

World events

Finally, here is a rundown of other events and milestones this week.

Monday

• China imposes retaliatory tariffs on American goods after Trump signed an executive order raising US taxes on Chinese imports by 10 per cent

• France: AI Action Summit, the latest in a series of summits on the safe development of artificial intelligence, opens in Paris

• Germany: Munich Security Report published. The annual report will serve as a basis for discussions at the Munich Security Conference, which begins on Friday

• UK: Church of England General Synod meeting begins. On the agenda are safeguarding proposals following the independent review by Keith Makin into the church’s handling of allegations of serious abuse by the late John Smyth

• UK/US: Labour peer Lord Mandelson officially becomes the British Ambassador to Washington

Tuesday

• Japan: National Foundation Day, a national holiday celebrating the founding of the nation in 660BC. Government offices, schools, banks and many companies close for the day

• US: New York Fashion Week’s last day, with Michael Kors showing his latest collection on the catwalk

Wednesday

• Canada/US: Ontario premier Doug Ford, chair of the Council of the Federation, leads a joint mission of Canadian premiers to Washington to meet key members of the Trump administration, Congress and business leaders to lobby for maintaining strong Canada-US relations

Thursday

• Belgium: Nato Allied Defence Ministers meeting, chaired by Nato Secretary-General Mark Rutte, begins in Brussels

• France: French President Emmanuel Macron hosts a conference on Syria in Paris, to support ‘a fair and inclusive political transition’ in the country after Islamist-led rebels toppled former president Bashar al-Assad’s regime in December after 13 years of civil war

• Vatican City: Pope Francis hosts a workshop, Tax Justice and Solidarity, with speakers including former South African president Thabo Mbeki and Brazil’s current president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva

Friday

• Valentine’s Day

• Germany: 61st Munich Security Conference, focusing on global security and international challenges. The event runs until Sunday

• UK: former Co-operative Bank chair Paul Flowers set to be sentenced after pleading guilty in July to fraud by abuse of position between June 2016 and October 2017

Saturday

• Abkhazia: presidential election

• Canada: 60th anniversary of Maple Leaf national flag replacing the red ensign containing the British Union Flag

• Serbia: Statehood Day

Sunday

• Canada: Invictus Games closing ceremony for the biennial sporting competition, held this year in Vancouver

• Ethiopia: African Union Heads of State and Government Summit concludes

• Germany: chancellor Olaf Scholz, his conservative challenger Friedrich Merz plus Alice Weidel of the AfD and Robert Habeck from the Greens take part in a four-way TV debate on German channel RTL ahead of next week’s federal election

• North Korea: national holiday to mark the birth of former leader Kim Jong-il, who died in 2011

• UK: EE Bafta film awards ceremony in London’s Royal Festival Hall, and hosted this year by actor David Tennant