Aurelia Butler

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Strong sales of cancer drugs and biopharmaceuticals helped push up revenues at AstraZeneca by 10 per cent in the first quarter, as the drugmaker said it would deepen its manufacturing presence in the US. The Anglo-Swedish pharmaceutical group on Tuesday reported revenue of $13.6bn in the first three months of the year, up 10 per cent year on year in constant currencies, and declared it was “firmly committed to investing and growing in the US” as the sector braces for the fallout of Donald Trump’s trade war. Chief executive Pascal Soriot said the FTSE 100 group continued to benefit from its “broad-based source of revenue and global manufacturing footprint”, adding it was planning “even greater” investment beyond its 11 US production sites. The update comes as pharmaceutical groups, including AstraZeneca, prepare themselves for potential US tariffs. Though the industry has so far benefited from exemptions, Trump has repeatedly said he planned to apply levies to the sector. Soriot told reporters that the company’s tariff-related exposure was limited and would fall further as it shifted manufacture of European-made products to the US. “Beyond 2025, any impact will be shortlived, because of the ability we have to move things around,” he said.He added: “When you see the amount of investment that is currently going into the United States, it really sends a very strong signal that Europe has to contribute to . . . pharmaceutical innovation a lot more. Because, unfortunately, otherwise all these jobs — whether they are manufacturing jobs or R&D jobs — are going to move to the US over time.”AstraZeneca derived about 40 per cent of its sales from the US in the first three months of the year and had already committed to investing $3.5bn in America by the end of 2026 as part of a plan to meet an ambitious target of almost doubling revenues by $80bn by 2030. Soriot said the group was making “excellent progress” towards that goal. AstraZeneca shares were down 3 per cent in lunchtime trading in London, which analysts attributed to sales growth being slightly lower than forecasts.However, the company’s core earnings per share — a key metric in the industry — increased 21 per cent to $2.49, well ahead of consensus forecasts. Pre-tax profits were up 21.5 per cent year on year to $3.4bn. Meanwhile, currency-adjusted revenues climbed at least 9 per cent in all regions outside China, in a sign of the drugmaker’s broad-based global business and the strength of demand for its oncology portfolio. Oncology division sales rose 13 per cent, helped by expansions in the use of existing drugs. Sales at the company’s China business increased 5 per cent, as it sought to manage a scandal that led to the detention of a top executive. The group said it might be penalised up to five times the $1.6mn the Shenzhen City Customs Office suspects it owes in unpaid importation taxes. China’s investigation into AstraZeneca triggered the detention in October of Leon Wang, who oversaw the country in his former role as executive vice-president of the international region.The company said it had been separately informed by Chinese authorities that it had made no illegal gain from alleged infringements of personal information regulations.Soriot said the company had “taken accountability” for what had happened in China and made changes to its operations there. “We remain very committed to China,” he said. “It’s an important market for us: not only because millions of patients need our medicines, but also because China has become a very important . . . engine of innovation in our industry.” More

In the end, Canada’s election was as much about the man in the White House as the one who would be prime minister in Ottawa. The margin was thin, but the verdict from Canadians was clear. With President Donald Trump’s tariffs threatening the foundations of their economy, voters wanted Canada’s leader to be the central banker who navigated the global financial crisis and Brexit. Mark Carney, who until Monday evening was not even a member of parliament, is now on track to lead a minority government with a mandate to confront Trump. He has promised a “broad renegotiation of our security and trade relationship” with the US, Canada’s closest ally and largest trading partner.“We are once again at one of those hinge moments of history,” Carney told jubilant supporters at a victory rally in Ottawa. “Our old relationship with the US, one based on steady integration, is over.”The “American betrayal” was a tragedy, Carney said, “but it is also our new reality”. “America wants our land, our resources, our water, our country. These are not idle threats.”After almost a decade of Justin Trudeau’s progressive politics, Carney moved the Liberal party decisively towards the centre, and put Canadian sovereignty and opposition to Trump — who has threatened to annex the country — at the core of his pitch to voters.“It was a very serious election and these issues were almost existential,” Jean Chrétien, Canada’s Liberal prime minister from 1993 to 2003, told the Financial Times. “Mr Carney has a mandate that is clear, the Canadians want him to stand up to the threat that is Mr Trump,” he said. Some content could not load. Check your internet connection or browser settings.Carney’s win will resonate well beyond Canada, especially in western capitals and global boardrooms where the former Goldman Sachs executive is already a known quantity — and now becomes a strong figure among world leaders prepared to stand up to Trump.Sandro Gozi, an Italian politician who led Europe’s liberal parties in EU elections last year, said Carney’s win was “the first victory of democracy against a new and unacceptable imperialistic and bullish action from Washington”.“It can inspire other countries,” said Gozi. “The victory of Carney is of the utmost importance. Not only for Canada but for all the democrats around the world.”Carney’s campaign capitalised on a groundswell of patriotism as Canadians balked at Trump’s taunts and tariffs, pulling Napa Valley wine from liquor store shelves and booing the American national anthem at ice hockey games.As of the early hours of Tuesday morning, the Liberals were on track to win 168 seats in the 343-seat House of Commons, well ahead of the Conservatives at 144 seats but short of a majority.A minority government would present challenges for Carney. His first priority must be to negotiate a voting deal with a partner such as the New Democratic party, leaving his premiership in a holding pattern for now.The NDP, which also supported Trudeau’s previous government, was on track to win seven seats. Though its leader Jagmeet Singh resigned after failing to win his seat, the leftwing party would have the balance of power and could hold Carney to ransom on policy and legislation.NDP leader Jagmeet Singh and his wife Gurkiran Kaur Sidhu on election night More

Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for freeYour guide to what Trump’s second term means for Washington, business and the worldShow video infoChina has stepped up an international propaganda campaign against the US trade war, unleashing slick videos portraying itself as standing up against American “bullying” on behalf of the rest of the world, especially the “weak” in developing countries.Posted by the ministry of foreign affairs on social media, the videos represent a dramatic hardening of Beijing’s diplomatic stance in the trade war and are part of a charm offensive designed to portray China as championing free commerce while Washington “slaps its allies in the face”.The propaganda videos contrast dark scenes of Wall Street chaos and angry American protesters with a bright and futuristic China, illustrated by high-tech humanoid robots and rockets shooting into space.In images chosen to highlight China’s positive relationships with other countries, Mercedes-Benz chief executive Ola Källenius is seen speaking at a recent conference in Beijing and an African traditional tribesman is pictured apparently making a deal with a Chinese businessperson.The latest video, titled “Never Kneel Down”, was released on Tuesday and warns countries not to make deals with the US, reflecting concerns in Beijing that US President Donald Trump is using tariffs to force other countries to join America in isolating China.“Bowing to a bully is like drinking poison to quench a thirst,” the video said. “China won’t back down so the voices of the weak will be heard,” it added, showing images of African children. “Bullying will be stopped . . . when the rest of the world stands together in solidarity, the US is just a small stranded boat.” The rhetoric in the videos, which directly cites the US and even Maga, Trump’s “Make America Great Again” political movement, comes as both sides grapple with the growing fallout of what amounts to an embargo on bilateral trade, with Washington and Beijing levying tariffs of 145 per cent and 125 per cent on each other’s goods respectively. Both have signalled they are open to talks and have granted exemptions to some essential products. But there are still no signs of serious negotiations despite claims from Trump that President Xi Jinping has called him. Xi toured Vietnam, Malaysia and Cambodia this month to strengthen ties as part of what analysts have described as China’s trade war charm offensive that also includes Europe and Latin America. Late on Monday, foreign minister Wang Yi told his counterparts at a meeting of the Brics group of emerging countries that appeasement would only embolden the US “bully” and urged them to fight back. China wants “to try and shore up its support in western and non-western capitals to prevent Trump forming an anti-China trade bloc”, said Neil Thomas, a fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute’s Center for China Analysis. In the “Never Kneel Down” video, Beijing also tries to warn traditional US allies that Washington is not a reliable partner, highlighting its past treatment of Japan with the 1985 Plaza Accord that led to the appreciation of the yen and “decades of anaemic growth”.The videos, along with increasingly forceful commentaries in state media, show China is digging in for a long stand-off with the US. State-owned Beijing Daily on Monday published a commentary stating it was necessary to view the trade war through the lens of Mao Zedong’s 1938 speeches “On Protracted War” and brace for a prolonged struggle. “Facing the butcher’s knife, many countries previously fantasised about ‘feeding themselves to the wolves’ in exchange for a moment’s fragile safety,” the commentary says. “For China, hoping to gain a reprieve through unilateral compromise is fundamentally impossible.”The commentary says China’s strength lies in remaining patient and resisting premature calls for compromise. Backing down or rushing to negotiate would not only weaken China’s position, but also misunderstand the long-term nature of the conflict, the unnamed author wrote. The tougher rhetoric in the Chinese propaganda recalls the plunge in relations between the two countries during Trump’s first term, when Beijing unleashed a brash new combative approach to international relations known as “wolf warrior” diplomacy — named after a set of films in which Chinese special-operations fighters defeat western-led mercenaries. More

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This article is an on-site version of our FirstFT newsletter. Subscribers can sign up to our Asia, Europe/Africa or Americas edition to get the newsletter delivered every weekday morning. Explore all of our newsletters hereGood morning and welcome to FirstFT Asia. In today’s newsletter: China seeks to reassure the public about the economyWhy Trump can’t build iPhones in the US An op-ed on the Indus Waters Treaty and Indian securityWe start in Beijing, where China’s top economic officials yesterday used a press conference to reassure the public about the state of the economy amid a trade war with the US. Here’s more on what they said.Projecting confidence: Zhao Chenxin, vice chair of the National Development and Reform Commission, China’s state planner, said the country could do without American farm and energy imports. US agricultural imports were “primarily for feed grains, which were highly substitutable”, Zhao said, and noted there would be limited impact on China’s energy supplies if companies stopped importing American oil, natural gas and coal.With US-China bilateral tariffs at more than 100 per cent, trade between the two economic superpowers has begun to fall, causing Chinese factories to begin furloughing workers. But Zhao maintained that Beijing was “fully confident” of hitting the country’s 5 per cent growth target for the year, even as he admitted “external shocks were increasing”.Trade war impact: The loss of the Chinese market would be a substantial hit for US farmers, who shipped roughly $33bn of agricultural goods to the country in 2023. The US also sent about $15bn of oil, gas and coal to China. There is rising desire in the Trump administration for talks with Beijing, but China has shown little appetite for negotiations and repeatedly blasted Washington’s claims of ongoing discussions as false. Beijing last week indicated that the US should cancel its tariffs as a starting point for trade talks. Read the full story.China stockpiles oil: Chinese oil traders are setting aside concerns over the long-term economic damage of a US trade war as they seek to profit from one of the short-term consequences: lower crude prices.Chinese clean tech exports surge: China has rapidly scaled up sales of solar panels, batteries and other green energy technologies to emerging markets well ahead of the US tariff fight, the latest data shows.Here’s what else we’re keeping tabs on today:Japan-Philippines relations: Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba begins a visit to Manila, where he will meet his Philippine counterpart Ferdinand Marcos Jr.Canadian election results: The first polls close in the coming hours. The vote, which has been overshadowed by Trump’s attacks on the country’s sovereignty, has pitted Prime Minister Mark Carney against Conservative party leader Pierre Poilievre.Earnings season: HSBC, China Construction Bank and the Industrial & Commercial Bank of China report earnings.Thinking about your next trip? Join the FT and Nikkei Inc. as we explore why Japan is topping global travel lists and how you can make the most of your next visit. Register for free.Five more top stories1. Shares in a swath of companies surged in Tokyo yesterday after a $42bn plan to take car parts maker Toyota Industries private triggered hopes of a wider overhaul of Japan’s corporate landscape. Investors are placing bets on subsidiaries and affiliates that they think might also come under pressure to change their ownership relationship.2. Pirelli’s board has voted to strip Chinese conglomerate Sinochem, its single largest shareholder, of control over the Italian tyre company amid clashes over its governance. The Italian and Chinese board members have been at odds for some time, and the tensions were further heightened by Trump’s trade war with China and its implications for Pirelli’s American expansion. Here are more details.3. European and Ukrainian officials fear Trump is on the brink of walking away from peace negotiations with Kyiv and Moscow, potentially using minor progress in talks as an “excuse” to say his job is done, according to people briefed on the discussions. Officials are convinced Trump is ready to seize any kind of breakthrough this week, which marks his first 100 days in office — even if it falls short of a long-term solution.4. A mystery power outage hit Spain and Portugal yesterday, paralysing transport networks and disrupting mobile communications. The Spanish government declared a state of emergency as large areas faced a night without electricity. Here’s more on the havoc caused by the massive outage.5. The acting chief executive of Saudi Arabia’s Neom has in recent weeks launched a “comprehensive review” of the scope and priority of projects within Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s flagship scheme, two people familiar with the matter said. Aiman al-Mudaifer was appointed last year to lead the $500bn mega project following increasing scrutiny of the futuristic plan.Visual story© TechInsightsThe Trump administration wants Apple to manufacture its iPhones in the US instead of China, where most of them are currently made. But our latest visual story shows how the components that power it make this highly impractical.We’re also reading . . . Indus Waters Treaty: India’s decision to undermine the water-sharing agreement with Pakistan will imperil rather than promote New Delhi’s pursuit of lasting security, writes Sunil Amrith.Battery battle: A new front has opened in the battle between Chinese and South Korean companies that have dominated cell production for electric vehicles.Gen Z in the workplace: Data shows younger workers — more than baby boomers — crave the connection and routine of in-person work.Chart of the dayThe number of US students looking to study at UK universities has risen sharply since Trump launched his attack on some of America’s top higher education institutions, data shows.Some content could not load. Check your internet connection or browser settings.Take a break from the newsAre you ready to roti? Recipes for the buttery Malaysian flatbread are hard to find, but a master roti maker is publishing his recipe for the first time with a step-by-step guide in his new cookbook. Sugen Gopal demonstrates how to flip roti in his book Roti King More

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.The writer, an FT contributing editor, is chief executive of the Royal Society of Arts and former chief economist at the Bank of EnglandPanican: noun. A person or party that panics, overreacting to events in a weak and stupid way. Derogatory.This neologism is barely a month old. There is an irony, a bigly one, that within a week of invention, its author (the US president) had himself become a card-carrying member of the Panican party. It took only 24 hours of bond market mayhem for “liberation day” to give way to “comeuppance quarter”, with a 90-day tariff pause. Nonetheless, the question raised by the US president remains as relevant now as then. Has the reaction of financial markets, politicians and the media to his tariff announcements been excessive? Have the 24/7 catastrophisers in financial markets and the media, and a political class routinely declaring the world’s end, panicked? The impact of tariffs, and in particular the fear of an unknown escalation in them, is in an important sense very much real. If an arms race took hold, a day of liberation could well presage a decade or more of hibernation in world trade and growth. The arc of trade history has, with alarming regularity, bent towards darkness.Tariff shocks emanating from the US have occurred on a routinely half-century cycle for the past 250 years: 1789, 1828, 1890, 1930, 1971. Each left a lasting macroeconomic scar — in the penultimate case (the Smoot-Hawley tariffs) deepening the Great Depression, in the final case (the “Nixon shock”) triggering the Great Inflation. Both are remembered as great for the wrong reasons.Half a century on, with world trade now both larger and significantly more interwoven, the scars from a 2025 tariff shock could be expected to be deeper still. The bloodstained economic forecasts of the past month attest to that, with a US recession now a coin-toss. So, too, in financial markets, with more than $6tn lost from global stock markets and implied volatilities having risen threefold.On the other side of this argument, however, no one is today in any doubt that the cat’s cradle of global supply chains cannot be unravelled without years of re-engineering at catastrophic cost. The very inter-connectivity of world trade, and the costs of disconnection, are the best possible bulwark against tariff escalation. The excess sensitivity of financial markets apply a double-lock. By telescoping and amplifying these costs, they serve as a real-time disciplining device on politicians claiming they can weather the short-term pain. This makes capitulation speedier than in the past. The Smoot-Hawley tariffs lasted four years, Nixon’s tariff’s four months. The worst of Trump’s tariffs lasted barely a week.The tariffs could be re-escalated. But once bitten, twice shy. The past month leaves a US president as psychologically scarred and gossamer thin-skinned as the businesses and financial markets he has held in thrall. The irresistible force of self-importance helped cause the US tariff spike, but the immovable object of self-preservation will be its undoing. For all the rhetoric of a new world order, then, the forces of global mean-reversion may in fact be stronger than ever. A new financial order was widely expected after the global financial crisis. Twenty years on we have seen some redirection of flows but no great unravelling. World trade may well follow a similar path, if anything fortified by recent events, perhaps even with China as its unlikely new champion.Meanwhile, despite external expressions of dismay, the past month has been a political godsend for many world leaders. Trade war and talk of a new world order are breathing life into flagging and unpopular regimes (Xi Jinping in China, Emmanuel Macron in France, Vladimir Putin in Russia), providing oven-ready alternatives for new ones (Friedrich Merz in Germany, Mark Carney in Canada, Keir Starmer in the UK). Yet tellingly, and with the exception of China, the escalation solemnly declared by many leaders has so far been largely semantic rather than substantive. We’ve had a month of reciprocal rhetoric rather than tariffs. If the forces of mean-reversion and self-preservation remain strong, long may (and will) that continue.  An epoch of de-globalisation is possible. Trump tariffs may yet mark a new trade chapter. More likely, however, the arc of history will bend back towards the light, with recent events as chapter footers not headers. What we have witnessed is a panic rather than a heart attack for the world economy — indeed, a self-stabilising one. In an over-anxious, rudderless era, the rise of the panicans may save us from ourselves. More

This article is an on-site version of our Trade Secrets newsletter. Premium subscribers can sign up here to get the newsletter delivered every Monday. Standard subscribers can upgrade to Premium here, or explore all FT newslettersWelcome to Trade Secrets. Something struck me over the weekend when I saw Donald Trump at Pope Francis’s funeral in Vatican City: he had contrived to visit one of the very few states on earth he hasn’t hit with tariffs. Thinking about it, Italy should totally do a deal with the Vatican to route its exports to the US through it to circumvent the American president’s duties on the EU. The Lateran Treaty, but for rules of origin. I can’t imagine any objections. In this newsletter, I’m looking at this week’s federal elections in Canada and Australia and pondering the electoral returns to be made from defying Trump’s bullying, which seem to be gratifyingly high. Charted Waters, which looks at the data behind world trade, is on stock prices.Get in touch. Email me at [email protected] Anglosphere strikes back It’s a neat experiment to have elections in two of the US’s Five Eyes allies around the end of Trump’s first 100 days in office. (The UK on Thursday has some local elections and a “by-election” to replace an MP forced to resign for hitting a constituent, itself perhaps something of a metaphor for the Trump administration, but no one’s really taking that as a referendum on Sir Keir Starmer’s trade negotiation strategy — on which, more below.)There’s always a risk of projecting an outside obsession on to a national debate, and Australia’s election next week is focused more on cost of living issues than on its dealings with Trump. Still, the tariffs are certainly a big subject — and in Canada they’re clearly a huge issue. The elections will very probably show that it’s a bad idea to position yourself as someone who can coax a good deal out of Trump to negotiate the tariffs away.I guess it wasn’t evident to all just how crazy Trump was going to be on trade. Mindful of my watchword, the evidence for which continues to accumulate on a daily basis, that includes me. So boasting of your ability to get great deals out of Trump, as did Canada’s Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre in early January, might have been a morally reprehensible idea. But before inauguration day on January 20, it wasn’t obviously a self-destructive one.Canada has now gone through a learning curve incredibly quickly, providing an excellent step-by-step demonstration to the rest of the world. The Liberal former prime minister Justin Trudeau tried co-operation and charm as soon as president-elect Trump made his tariff threats in November. It was worth a go, but the effect didn’t last: the threats came back. Then Trudeau tried standing up to Trump with a promise of immediate retaliation and rallied the nation with a terrific speech. That did seem to work.It helps that Trump has managed to hammer the US stock market (and most likely its economy) more than Canada’s. Mark Carney taking over as prime minister from Trudeau and amping up the rhetoric to 11 has delivered one of the fastest polling swings in a democracy anyone seems able to remember. Poilievre’s Trump card, as it were, has turned into a massive disadvantage.Some content could not load. Check your internet connection or browser settings.It’s a less obvious picture in Australia, which is in any case economically far more dependent on China as an export market than the US. It’s Canberra’s security relationship with Washington that matters. That situation doesn’t look great. But unlike with Russia and Ukraine, Trump hasn’t actually switched sides in Asia, nor is he (yet) trying to annex Australia.Still, it does look to be a clear tactical error for the opposition Liberal party leader Peter Dutton to have boasted earlier this month that the Liberal-led government in 2018 used the US-Australia security relationship to negotiate its way out of Trump’s steel and aluminium tariffs the first time round, and to suggest doing the same again. The Liberal prime minister at that time, Malcolm Turnbull, has warned very loudly and publicly that the world has changed and Trump is not to be trusted. If the Labor government gets re-elected, the lesson for other countries — if it isn’t already obvious — is that you gain from taking a firm line on talking trade with Trump.This lesson might even just be dawning on the UK, where Starmer’s government has established a bizarre habit not just of boasting of its ability to get along with Trump, but of claiming inspiration from his administration and specifically Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency vandals. Britain also reckoned it was relatively safe given it didn’t run a big surplus with the US, only to find that, after the “liberation day” tariffs on April 2 and the “pause” retreat on April 9, it had ended up with the same 10 per cent baseline tariff as almost everyone else. The meretricious idea from Lord Peter Mandelson, UK ambassador to Washington and an (unimpressive) former EU trade commissioner, to prepare a pre-emptive package of concessions on tech and tax issues looks increasingly unwise. The UK has at least rhetorically indicated it will prioritise EU over US trade. But now would be an excellent time to slow-walk Trump and push ahead with Brussels.Slow-walking Trump to his tariff cliff-edgeSpeaking of which, the UK evidently thought it would get an early-bird discount by being quick to come to a deal. This also looks like a bad prediction. The Trump administration’s tactics, as briefed here to the Wall Street Journal, are genuinely hilarious, even leaving aside Trump’s claim to have negotiated more deals (200) than there are countries in the world.Six major trading partners each week simultaneously negotiating tariffs, quotas, rules of origin, regulatory and other non-tariff barriers and economic security with an administration whose capacity to execute trade policy is such that it tries to tariff an island of penguins? If you live-streamed these talks on global pay-per-view you could close the US fiscal deficit on the proceeds, a cringing world watching through its fingers in horrified fascination. It’s a real shame Trump was in tariff-free Vatican City so couldn’t appear in a trade negotiation special of The Apprentice over the weekend, except this time with him getting fired.Oh, but wait. There’s more. Apparently the US’s three biggest trading partners (Canada, China and Mexico) won’t be in these cycles of talks because . . . reasons. And India also isn’t because . . . other reasons. China last week showed open contempt for the process, explicitly briefing that it wasn’t in talks with the US and telling the Americans to knock off claiming it was. Japan, usually more circumspect about public disagreements, has also been pretty clear that it’s not acting under US instructions.And since hardly any of the US’s trading partners have felt the need to retaliate with their own tariffs, they aren’t harming their own economies in the meantime. China has hit back, obviously, but finds itself quite free to adjust that retaliation to prevent self-harm without looking weak.With Trump’s popularity falling by the week, financial markets on the alert for any further sign of chaos and transpacific container trade simply drying up, for which see Charted Waters and the Trade Links section below, trading partners without a lot of direct reliance on exports to the US would be well advised to drag talks out and let the 90-day negotiation deadline loom. Also that would be much funnier for the rest of us to watch, which by this stage is almost the main point.Charted watersA nice illustration of the weapon Trump has handed his trading partners in the tariff talks: the threat of the “reciprocal tariffs” on April 2 pushed stocks down in Europe and the US, while the “pause” on April 9 revived them. But the notion that the US economy is in the hands of dangerous buffoons has continued to weigh relatively more on US equity prices since then, even without more big tariff announcements.Trade linksThe genuine prospect of shortages in American stores is rising as transpacific freight dries up because of the Trump tariffs on China: logistics people note there are currently no international cargo ships in the Port of Seattle.Politico looks at the prospect of the Trump tariffs encouraging the EU to do trade deals elsewhere.Apple wants to move iPhone manufacturing to India, but China’s unlikely to give it up without making it difficult.The FT’s Unhedged newsletter thinks that unless some certainty about tariffs is established, markets will find a new, much lower level that takes account of years of volatility to come.Volkswagen has overtaken Tesla as the number one electric vehicle seller in Europe, which must give some relief to Brussels policymakers who are trying not to just hand the whole European EV market straight from a US manufacturer to Chinese ones.The FT’s Lex column looks at how the tariff wars might be delaying the deployment of robot technology.Trade Secrets is edited by Harvey NriapiaRecommended newsletters for youChris Giles on Central Banks — Vital news and views on what central banks are thinking, inflation, interest rates and money. 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