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EU leaders are considering hitting the US with a €93bn ($107.7bn) package of tariffs in response to Donald Trump’s threats to Nato allies opposed to his campaign to take over Greenland. Another option that will be discussed at an emergency summit in Brussels on Thursday is the to date never-used 'Anti-Coercion Instrument' (ACI), which could limit access to public tenders, investments or banking activity or restrict trade in services, in which the US has a surplus with the bloc, including in digital services. "I'm convinced that [Europe] must not give in," observed Jérémie Gallon, a former French diplomat and current senior managing director at McLarty Associates, a Washington-based international strategic advisory firm. "Resisting a new attempt at humiliation and vassalization is the only way Europe can finally assert itself as a geopolitical actor."

 

Financial Times

Politico

Reuters

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President Donald Trump has threatened to sue JPMorgan Chase for allegedly “debanking” him following the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol. “I’ll be suing JPMorgan Chase over the next two weeks for incorrectly and inappropriately DEBANKING me after the January 6th Protest, a protest that turned out to be correct for those doing the protesting,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post. JPMorgan spokesperson Trish Wexler said: “While we won’t get specific about a client, we don’t close accounts because of political beliefs,” adding “We appreciate that this Administration has moved to address political debanking and we support those efforts.”

 

CNBC	The Guardian

Alphabet's Google has asked a judge to defer making the company share data with rivals while it challenges a 2024 ruling that it used unlawful tactics to maintain its dominance in online search. U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta in Washington at the time went too far in seeking to level the playing field by ordering the company to share its data with competitors such as generative artificial intelligence companies, Google said. "Although Google believes that these remedies are unwarranted and should never have been imposed, it is prepared to do everything short of turning over its data or providing syndicated results and ads while its appeal is pending," the company said.

 

Reuters

California Attorney General Robert Bonta has issued a cease-and-desist letter to Elon Musk's xAI, demanding an end to the production of nonconsensual sexualised images by its Grok chatbot. Bonta described the reports of such content, which include disturbing depictions involving women and children, as "shocking" and potentially illegal. As the scrutiny on Musk's ventures escalates globally, authorities from Japan and various other regions are also investigating the issue surrounding Grok's content generation.

 

Reuters

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission is scrutinizing big tech firms that hire employees of a start-up instead of buying the companies outright. The growing practice is seen as a way to sidestep antitrust review. "We are beginning to examine these acqui-hires to make sure they are not an attempt to get around" the agency’s merger review process, FTC chairman Andrew Ferguson said in an interview with Bloomberg Television. He blamed the Biden administration's aggressive antitrust enforcement for encouraging companies to increase the practice.

 

Bloomberg

Amazon Web Services has agreed a two year deal with Rio Tinto to secure the output of a mine that has become the first new source of U.S.-mined copper in years. Rio Tinto, through its Nuton venture, is using a new process involving bacteria and acid to extract copper from low-grade ore previously considered uneconomical to process, allowing operations to restart at old mines. While the project is not expected to deliver significant quantities of copper over the next few years, around 70% of global copper reserves are estimated to be contained in such low-grade ores.

 

Reuters

The Wall Street Journal

Brazil is eyeing its abundant but largely untapped rare earth deposits as a potential bargaining chip as it repairs ties with the United States following a diplomatic crisis last year.

 

Financial Times

Ukraine's chief negotiator, Rustem Umerov, has said discussions with U.S. officials regarding the resolution of the war with Russia will continue at the World Economic Forum in Davos. Umerov noted that previous meetings in Florida focused on security guarantees and post-war recovery plans. He said: "We agreed to continue work at the team level during the next phase of consultations in Davos."

 

U.S. News

China’s overseas infrastructure finance programme the Belt and Road Initiative increased by three-quarters to a record $213.5bn in 2025, according to Australia’s Griffith University and Shanghai's Green Finance & Development Center.

 

Financial Times

U.S. homebuilder confidence declined in January, with the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) index falling two points to 37, marking the 21st consecutive month below the breakeven level of 50. Affordability concerns, elevated mortgage rates, and supply-side challenges such as labor shortages, high material costs, and regulatory pressures continue to weigh on the housing market. While a recent drop in mortgage rates offers some relief, builders are still contending with weak buyer traffic and a surplus of unsold new homes. "While the upper end of the housing market is holding steady, affordability conditions are taking a toll on the lower and mid-range sectors," said NAHB chair Buddy Hughes. "Buyers are concerned about high home prices and mortgage rates, with down payments particularly challenging given elevated price-to-income ratios."

 

Bloomberg

Reuters

Billionaire fortunes have grown at a rate three times faster than the previous five years since the election of Donald Trump in November 2024, according to Oxfam in a report timed for the opening of the World Economic ‌Forum in Davos. While US billionaires have seen the sharpest growth in their fortunes, billionaires in the rest of the world have also seen double digit increases.  The number of billionaires has surpassed 3,000 for the first time, and the level of billionaire wealth is now higher than at any time in history. "The widening gap between the rich and the rest is at the same time ‍creating a political deficit that is highly dangerous and unsustainable," Oxfam's executive director Amitabh Behar said.

 

Al Jazeera

Oxfam

Reuters

The Guardian