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    Trump’s Computer Chip Deals With Saudi Arabia and UAE Divide US Government

    Big deals to sell chips to the U.A.E. and Saudi Arabia have divided the U.S. government over whether they could be remembered for shipping cutting-edge A.I. overseas.Over the course of a three-day trip to the Middle East, President Trump and his emissaries from Silicon Valley have transformed the Persian Gulf from an artificial-intelligence neophyte into an A.I. power broker.They have reached an enormous deal with the United Arab Emirates to deliver hundreds of thousands of today’s most advanced chips from Nvidia annually to build one of the world’s largest data center hubs, three people familiar with the talks said. The shipments would begin this year, with the vast majority of the chips going to U.S. cloud service providers and about 100,000 of them to G42, an Emirati A.I. firm.The administration revealed the agreement on Thursday in an announcement unveiling a new A.I. campus in Abu Dhabi supported by 5 gigawatts of electrical power. It would the largest such project outside the United States and help U.S. companies serve customers in Africa, Europe and Asia, the administration said. The details about the chips weren’t disclosed, and it’s not clear if they could still be subject to change.As Mr. Trump traversed the region in recent days, the United States also struck multibillion-dollar agreements to sell advanced chips from Nvidia and AMD to Saudi Arabia. The United States and Saudi Arabia are also still in discussions on a larger contract for A.I. technology, five people familiar with the negotiations said.The A.I. deals have caused people inside and outside the White House to wrestle with an unexpected question. Is the Trump administration, in its zeal to make deals in a region where Mr. Trump and his family have financial ties, outsourcing the industry of the future to the Middle East?The question speaks to divisions over A.I. policy that are rippling through the Trump administration. The deals were negotiated in the Middle East by David Sacks, the administration’s A.I. czar, and Sriram Krishnan, its senior policy adviser for A.I., who are both longtime venture capitalists. Leading figures in the A.I. industry, like Sam Altman of OpenAI and Jensen Huang of Nvidia, have also been involved in talks that have continued on the sidelines of the president’s trip in recent days.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    How India Is Trying to Squeeze Pakistan Far From the Battlefield

    The nuclear-armed rivals are also wrangling over Pakistan’s access to desperately needed foreign aid, as India explores ways to use its soft power and relationships to bedevil its old enemy.Even as India was gearing up to use its military to strike at Pakistan this week, calling it revenge for a terrorist strike in Kashmir last month, the government was pursuing other forms of power projection as well: bloodless and more refined, and mostly aimed at Pakistan’s economic vulnerability.On Friday, May 9, the executive board of the International Monetary Fund is scheduled to meet three blocks from the White House. Indian officials have suggested that they will make a new case there: that the Fund should refuse the extension of a $7 billion loan to Pakistan described as crucial to getting the country on more solid footing financially and to fund desperately needed services for its people. And though Indian officials will not confirm it, other potential sources of Pakistani aid may also be in India’s sights, according to domestic media reports.In two weeks before its strikes against Pakistan on Wednesday, India was already testing new ways to aggrieve its old enemy.On April 23, India pulled out of a river-sharing treaty that has safeguarded Pakistan’s vulnerable water supply since 1960. Pakistan called it an act of war.India turned to its softer power, as well. As tensions rose after the terrorist attack in Kashmir, India tinkered with its internet controls to cut off Pakistani musicians and cricketers from their audiences on Indian social media, much as it blocked Indians from using Chinese-owned TikTok after a clash with China in 2020.India also announced that it would sever all trade between the two countries. In practice, there wasn’t much to begin with. India exports mainly sugar, medicines and some other chemicals to Pakistan. Some Indian exporters said they never got a legal notice from the government — so they are still fulfilling contracts.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Can President Trump Turn Back the Economic Clock?

    Historians make their names by persuading people to see patterns in the chaos. In the late 1970s, the French historian Fernand Braudel thought that one of those patterns was about to repeat. Braudel was a student of the slow-moving currents that shape events. He wanted people to pay less attention to great men like Napoleon and more to seemingly humble things like the potato, a New World import that made it easier for European farmers to grow more food than they needed; this surplus, in turn, gave a wider array of Europeans time to engage in new hobbies like complaining about their rulers. One might say that he regarded the potato as the cause of Napoleon.Listen to this article, read by Malcolm HillgartnerIn the third volume of his epic “Civilization and Capitalism,” published in 1979, Braudel explored the forces that made one city at a time the economic center of the Western world, from Venice to Amsterdam to London, and then inexorably lifted up another in its place. He wrote that cities rose as centers of commerce, and then, as they prospered, they began to invest their surpluses in building new centers, engineering their own declines. Commerce moved on, leaving a financial hub behind.Braudel’s account ended with the decline of Amsterdam, the entrepôt of Europe through the 17th and into the 18th century, a city of astonishing wealth and diversity. Wide-eyed visitors wrote of its wonders with the same astonishment as later generations would write of New York. The young czar of Russia went home so impressed that he built St. Petersburg in its image. But as Amsterdam grew fat and happy, its merchants became bankers and began to seek better returns in fast-growing London. Amsterdam, Braudel wrote, became “a society of rentier investors on the lookout for anything that would guarantee a quiet and privileged life,” a society that had moved on “from the healthy tasks of economic life to the more sophisticated games of the money market.”Braudel noted that London, too, eventually ceded its role, underwriting the rise of New York in the early 20th century. And in the late 1970s, he judged that New York was entering the “autumn” of its era as the center of the global economy. Commerce and industry were fleeing the city, leaving behind a thriving financial center — a sure sign in Braudel’s view that New York, and the nation it anchored, were on the edge of decline.Donald Trump became Donald Trump in that city, building towers and bankrupting casinos as Wall Street boomed and the working class faded away, and he emerged with a similarly bleak view of America’s prospects. His career as a political figure has been built on his conviction that America is losing its wealth and its power. If Ronald Reagan filled voters with hope, Trump offers to keep them company in their misery. He has an intuition for the things that people fear and is comfortable saying what other politicians won’t. Where other presidents intone that it’s still Morning in America, Trump has touched a nerve by insisting that it’s not long before midnight.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    U.S. and China to Hold First Trade Talks Since Trump’s Tariffs

    Scott Bessent, the Treasury secretary, and Jamieson Greer, the United States trade representative, will discuss trade and economic matters with the officials this week.Top officials from the Trump administration will meet with their Chinese counterparts in Switzerland this week, the first formal meeting about trade between the United States and China since President Trump raised tariffs on Chinese imports to triple-digit levels last month.Scott Bessent, the Treasury secretary, and Jamieson Greer, the United States trade representative, plan to meet with Chinese officials during a trip to Geneva, where they will discuss trade and economic matters, according to separate announcements from the office of the trade representative and the Treasury Department.A spokesperson for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that He Lifeng, the vice premier for economic policy, would visit Switzerland from Friday to Monday and hold talks with Mr. Bessent. Mr. Bessent said on Fox News that the talks would be held on Saturday and Sunday.The meeting could help to defuse an economically damaging trade standoff that has persisted between the world’s largest economies for a month. In early April, Mr. Trump escalated tariffs on Chinese exports to a minimum of 145 percent, to punish Beijing for retaliating against his earlier levies.While both sides appear to be interested in reducing those tariffs, neither has wanted to make the first move. It remains unclear how quickly the United States and China might strike any kind of agreement, or what its contents could be.The Trump administration has criticized China for its role in bringing fentanyl and ingredients to make the drug to the United States, as well as a bevy of unfair trade practices. Mr. Trump and his advisers have also censured China for failing to stick to the terms of a trade deal the president negotiated in his first term. China, in return, has called Mr. Trump’s tariffs “illegal and unreasonable.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Oil Prices Are Falling. Here’s Where That Could Spell Trouble.

    For countries that depend heavily on oil revenue, dropping prices are worrisome.Oil producing countries are bracing for a bumpy ride this year, with a precipitous drop in prices to the lowest levels in four years seen as the initial, alarming sign of looming turmoil.A price drop benefits any country seeking to cut its fuel bill. But in oil producing nations, lower prices can feed economic troubles, and sometimes political unrest, as governments slash spending.Analysts who had already been predicting lower oil prices because of softening demand amid increased global production said the possibility of a tariff trade war and the overall climate of uncertainty could well deepen producers’ woes.“The steep price dive and overall volatility is sending a very strong signal that the global economy is going to be rattled this year and that will translate into a lower demand for oil,” said Gregory Brew, a specialist on the geopolitics of oil and gas with the Eurasia Group, a New York-based risk analysis organization.Wealthy producers may be able to cushion the blowEarlier this year, the price for benchmark crude held steady around $73 a barrel, high enough to sustain the budgets of most producing nations. But some countries, like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, base ambitious development plans on a price of at least $90 a barrel, analysts say.A huge, futuristic city project in Saudi Arabia is being financed with oil revenue.Planet Labs Pbc/Planet Labs PBC, via Associated PressWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Howard Lutnick, Trump’s ‘Buoyant’ Trade Warrior, Flexes His Power Over Global Business

    Since Howard Lutnick was tapped to serve as President Trump’s commerce secretary, executives from some of the world’s largest companies have been trying to win him over.Leaders of Nvidia, Facebook, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company and Alphabet have visited his newly purchased $25 million property in Washington — a 16,250-square-foot mansion that Mr. Lutnick, a billionaire, recently quipped would be “big enough for my ego” — to persuade him to adopt a business-friendly agenda.As Mr. Trump ratcheted up tariffs to levels not seen in a century, Ford Motor, General Motors and other companies that have built their businesses around international trade reached out to Mr. Lutnick in the hope that he could persuade the president to take a less aggressive approach. Some chief executives have put in calls to the commerce secretary at midnight.Mr. Lutnick, 63, heads a department that both promotes and regulates industry, and he has been put in charge of overseeing trade. As a result, he has found himself in a position of incredible influence, as the go-between for a president imposing sweeping tariffs and the industries being crushed by them.A former bond trader who amassed billions on Wall Street, Mr. Lutnick has become one of the loudest salesmen for tariffs in an administration generally unified on their benefits. He has publicly echoed the president’s message that big tariffs are needed to revive American industry, and that if companies don’t like them, they should build factories in the United States.But in internal conversations in the administration, he has often been a voice for moderation. He argued in favor of Mr. Trump’s pausing his global tariffs for 90 days after they sent convulsions through the stock and bond markets. And he has made the case to the president to grant relief to certain favored industries, helping them to win exemptions from billions of dollars of levies.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    In Trade War Clash With Trump, China Refuses to Take the Bait

    The Trump administration has been saying that the two countries are engaged in talks to resolve the dispute, but Beijing asserts that no such discussions are happening.If the trade war between China and the United States is a game of high-stakes brinkmanship, it is currently a game that Beijing is not willing to play.Faced with growing claims by President Trump and administration officials that the two countries are engaged in talks and that a deal could be reached in a matter of weeks, China’s Foreign Ministry pushed back forcefully on Friday by posting on X: “China and the U.S. are NOT having any consultation or negotiation. The U.S. should stop creating confusion.”The post came hours after a foreign ministry spokesman, Guo Jiakun, said the United States was “misleading the public.” A day earlier, Mr. Guo called the rumors of talks “fake news.”The response was the latest sign that China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, intends to hold firm in his standoff with Mr. Trump, sensing that his position is strengthening. Beijing is betting that it can stomach the pain of a trade war better than the Trump administration can because of U.S. political pressure and volatility on Wall Street, analysts say.“The Chinese are not eager to climb down the ladder,” said Yun Sun, the director of the China program at the Stimson Center in Washington. “They see Trump as wanting to climb down and are happy to let him stew in his own juice.”Ms. Sun said Beijing will not come to the negotiation table without any U.S. concessions or a good-will gesture. That could include scaling back tariffs, or making clear that Mr. Trump is reaching out to Mr. Xi first.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Trump Team Races to Form Trade Deals After Tariffs Sow Global Chaos

    The president’s threats of tariffs have brought countries like Japan, South Korea and India rushing to negotiate, but they have sown chaos with bigger trading partners like China.For a president who advertises himself as a paramount deal maker, the next 11 weeks will be a pivotal test, as his advisers race to accomplish what no other administration has done before and reach dozens of individual trade deals with other governments.President Trump has promised big gains for American trade, and officials from Japan, South Korea, India and elsewhere have been pushing for agreements as they look to forestall punishing tariffs. But trade experts say the administration has set up a seemingly impossible task, given that traditional trade deals typically take months or years to negotiate.Mr. Trump has tried to use tariffs as leverage to notch quick agreements, and his trade adviser, Peter Navarro, has promised “90 deals in 90 days.” But the levies are creating chaos and financial pain for many businesses, and they have not brought some of America’s largest trading partners, including China, to the table.Some U.S. trade with China has ground to a halt after the countries imposed triple-digit tariffs on each others’ products, and a wave of bankruptcies, especially among small U.S. businesses that rely on Chinese imports, appears to be looming if the trade barriers are maintained.Some Trump officials recognize that the situation with China is not sustainable and have been strategizing how to reduce the tariffs between the countries, two people familiar with the discussions said. Another person familiar with the discussions said administration officials were concerned about the hit to the stock market, which has experienced intense volatility and some of its worst trading days in years. The S&P 500 is down 10 percent since Mr. Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration.Speaking from the Oval Office on Wednesday, Mr. Trump said he wanted to make a deal with China. But he said what happens with his tariffs on China “depends on them.” He denied any concerns about what the tariffs are doing to small businesses, but said that the high tariff “basically means China isn’t doing any business with us.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More