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Afghan Interior Minister Sirajuddin Haqqani, pictured here at the anniversary event of the departure of the Soviet Union from Afghanistan, in Kabul, Afghanistan, on April 28, 2022.
The Trump administration has dropped multimillion-dollar bounties on senior Afghan officials from the Haqqani network, a militant faction that carried out some of the deadliest attacks on American troops but has now positioned itself as a moderate wing within the Taliban government.
The “largely symbolic” move this week came days after the US sent its first major diplomatic mission to Kabul since the Taliban took power in 2021, securing the release of an American citizen detained for the past two years.
While the bounties have been lifted, the men, including Interior Minister Sirajuddin Haqqani, remain on the US list of “specially designated global terrorists.”
Thawing relations: While few countries formally recognize the Taliban’s government, a handful – including India, Turkey, and Tajikistan – have established limited ties with Kabul.
China was the first country to formally welcome a Taliban diplomat as the official Afghanistan ambassador last year. In the highest-profile state visit yet, Uzbekistan last summer sent its prime minister to Kabul. Last month, Japan received a delegation from the Taliban for the first time.
Mineral riches: Washington estimates that Afghanistan sits atop at least $1 trillion in mineral wealth, including copper, cobalt, and lithium, in addition to gems such as emeralds, rubies, and sapphires. Last year, Beijing stepped up efforts to help the Taliban tap what could be the world’s second biggest deposit of copper. Washington may now want to keep China from seizing a monopoly like the one it has over minerals in places such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The Canadian flag flies on Parliament Hill in Ottawa.
Canada’s foreign interference watchdog is warning that China, India, and Russia plan on meddling in the country’s federal election. The contest, which launched last weekend, has already been marked by a handful of stories about past covert foreign interventions and threats of new ones.
This week, the Globe and Mailreported allegations that India interfered in 2022 to help get Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre elected, though he was not aware of the efforts. They also broke news that former Liberal Party leadership candidate and member of Parliament Chandra Arya was banned from running for leader and reelection because of alleged interference tied, once again, to India.
Now, Canada’s election interference monitoring group is warning that China, India, and Russia will try to interfere in the current election.
Poilievre also accused Liberal leader Mark Carney of being cozy with Beijing due to a $276 million loan Brookfield Asset Management secured from the Bank of China when Carney was Chair of Brookfield’s board. Carney rejected those accusations and, on Wednesday, said that Canada should not pursue greater economic ties with China but should prioritize other Asian nations and Europe.
Other Canadian critics have complained that the US is interfering, citing Donald Trump consigliere Elon Musk’s public statements about the country. But officials say this doesn’t meet the bar for foreign interference. Neither, apparently, do the actions of Alberta Premier Danielle Smith,who recently admitted to Breitbartthat she pressed Trump administration officials to delay tariffs to help elect the Conservatives over the Liberals, since Poilievre would be “the best person” for the White House to deal with given that he would be “very much in sync with the new direction in America.”The BMW Foundation is dedicated to addressing concrete challenges that, when solved, create the greatest global impact. With the first challenge, “International Collaboration to Develop Energy Transition and Infrastructure Solutions,” the foundation aims to facilitate international collaboration that accelerates the net-zero transition.
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South Korean flag.
170,000: A report released Wednesday by the independent Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Korea pointed blame at Seoul for human rights violations related to a decades-long adoption program. Lack of oversight, according to the report, led to the “mass exportation of children” — to the tune of at least 170,000 kids — by private firms that were driven by profit. South Korea has been the global leader in sending children abroad for adoption since the 1950s but has worked to tighten its adoption processes.
25: On Wednesday, Donald Trump announced that a 25% tariff would be placed on all automobiles and automobile parts imported into the United States. The new tariff, set to take effect on April 2, will apply to both finished cars and trucks, including American brands manufactured abroad. This policy could lead to significant price increases for consumers as nearly half of the vehicles sold in the US are imported. Shares in Toyota, Honda, and Nissan fell about 2% in Asia on Thursday. Japan, South Korea, and the EU will all be heavily impacted, and Germany – the bloc’s automobile powerhouse – is urging countries to “respond firmly” with “far larger” tariffs.
4: Four US soldiers have died in a training accident in Lithuania. According to the US Army Europe and Africa public affairs office in Germany, the soldiers were involved in scheduled tactical training, and Lithuania’s public broadcaster LRT said the four had been reported missing on Tuesday in Pabradė, a town located less than six miles from the Belarusian border.
12 billion: The Trump administration this week cut billions in funding for state-run health services. Health and Human Services started informing state health departments on Monday that more than $12 billion in federal grants to states was being cut with immediate effect. Layoff preparations began as early as Tuesday in some areas. The funds had been used for tracking infectious diseases, mental health services, addiction treatment and other urgent health issues, and the cuts are expected to further hamper struggling state health care facilities.
72: In some older European homes, you can still find bomb shelters-turned-wine cellars — reminders of the horrors of war. Those shelters may soon be lined with survival kits, after the EU announced Wednesday that it wants all of its member states to create 72-hour survival kits for their citizens. The idea behind the Preparedness Union Strategy? To be ready for any future disasters, whether they’re natural or man-made.
12: They led the fight for Mariupol at the beginning of the Russian invasion, and now 12 members of Ukraine’s Azov regiment – who were captured when Russia won the siege of the city – are facing long prison sentences in Russia. A military court on Wednesday handed them sentences ranging from 13 to 23 years for alleged terrorist activity and violently seizing or retaining power.Members of the Lawyers from Across Japan for the Victims of the Unification Church（LAJAVUC）attend a press conference as the Tokyo District Court issued a dissolution order to the Unification Church, the religious group formerly called the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, in Tokyo on March 25, 2025.
On Tuesday, a Tokyo court revoked the legal status of the Unification Church in Japan, ordering the sect known as the Moonies to disband following a government problem spurred by the assassination of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in 2022.
Founded in 1954 in Seoul, South Korea, by Sun Myung Moon, a preacher who cast himself as a messiah, the church raised an estimated 70% of its income in Japan, where its followers heavily pressured Japanese to give donations known as tithings to make up for the brutality of the country’s imperial era.
Widely derided as a cult, the Moonies claimed less than 100,000 followers in Japan in recent years – less than .1% of the country’s population, but pseudo and new-wave religious groups are popular in Japan, with an estimated 180,000 of them, or one for every 700 people. The Unification Church enjoyed outsize influence in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party that has governed Japan for most of the post-war era. Moon was a close friend of Abe’s grandfather, former Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi, who saw the sect as an ally against communism. The Moonies retained political influence by fundraising and promoting hundreds of candidates from the LDP.
In 2022, Tetsuya Yamagami admitted to killing Abe in an act of purported retribution after his mother, who was involved with the Moonies, donated over $1 million to the church. The confessed assassin accused Abe for allowing the church, which he blamed for leaving his family bankrupt, to prosper in Japan.
The church said Tuesday’s dissolution order was “absolutely unacceptable” and a threat to religious freedom. It is considering an immediate appeal, but David Boling, Japan director at Eurasia Group doesn't believe that will amount to much. “No one is interested in defending the church," he says. "The attitude of the Japanese public is ‘good riddance.’”
But when the Chinese startup DeepSeek released its AI models in January, claiming they matched American ones in performance at much cheaper prices to develop, the US lead was suddenly called into question. If DeepSeek can be believed, they achieved a huge technological advance without unfettered chip access — an affront to the US government’s export controls that, it thought, were keeping China at bay.
After DeepSeek, China is emboldened
Now, the Chinese tech industry seems emboldened, with a slew of new releases from startups and incumbents alike. This breakthrough has jumpstarted AI development across China that has, in an instant, changed global tech competition and reshaped Beijing’s tech strategy.
Alibaba, Tencent, and Baidu, along with newcomers like Manus AI, have since released their own advanced models. Many of these are available for free as open-source software, unlike the subscription models of OpenAI and others.
“DeepSeek shifts the narrative — not by immediately putting China ahead, but by undermining America's AI dominance and forcing Silicon Valley giants onto the defensive much sooner than anticipated,” said Tinglong Dai, professor at Johns Hopkins Carey Business School.
“DeepSeek did two things: increase confidence in China's ability to innovate and convince policymakers to push hard on tech advancement now,” said Kenton Thibaut, senior resident China fellow at the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab.
At a press conference earlier this month, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi wrote off America’s strict export controls. “Where there is blockade, there is breakthrough,” he said. “Where there is suppression, there is innovation; where there is the fiercest storm, there is the platform launching China’s science and technology skyward like the Chinese mythological hero Nezha soaring into the heavens.”
Beijing’s shifting focus
After DeepSeek, Thibaut notes, the Chinese government has signaled it will expand support to finance technological innovation — increasing its relending program budget, establishing a new national venture capital fund, allowing unprofitable firms to go public, and increasing mergers and acquisitions in the Chinese tech sector.
This is a major shift from just a few years ago when Beijing sought to put the explosive domestic tech sector in its place — infamously sinking the IPO of the rideshare giant Didi and closing a key loophole for companies going public on foreign markets in 2021.
Beijing’s incentives are now “aligned” with developing the domestic tech sector, Thibaut said, “Both are aligned on the understanding that companies have major incentives to localize — i.e. using domestically produced chips, even if they aren’t as good as NVIDIA’s — in the long term because of just how uncertain and unpredictable chip availability is and will be.”
And China's embrace of open-source AI models, which are freely available for the public to download and modify, has also raised eyebrows because it stands in contrast with the mostly closed Western models, with Meta’s Llama as a notable exception. If China can get its open-source models to be commonly used by Western developers, it could make an important stake in the global AI space. That said, the open-source model could hinder the economic benefits of AI in China — at least, in terms of making money directly off of these advancements.
For now, we’re witnessing a moment of confidence for China — one shared by both its government and tech sector. “Xi Jinping surely feels emboldened,” Dai said, “viewing this as tangible evidence of Western vulnerability and China’s rising trajectory.”
People visit the booth of Walmart eCommerce during the 5th China Cross-Border E-Commerce Trade Fair at Fuzhou Strait International Conference and Exhibition Center on March 18, 2025 in Fuzhou, Fujian Province of China.
The Chinese government is also applying pressure,warning earlier this month that demands for discounts could violate contracts and threaten trade relationships. Walmart hasa strong retail presence in China, with sales rising 16% to $17 billion last year, that it doesn’t want to jeopardize. And China also has other cards to play against tariffs: Chinese Premier Li Qiangreportedly signed a State Council decree, effective Monday, to enforce its2021 anti-foreign sanctions law, enabling retaliation against foreign entities through bans, asset freezes, and trade restrictions.
Who could benefit from a trade dropoff with China? First in line: India.Milan Vaishnav, director of the South Asia program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told NPR that “Prime Minister [Narendra] Modi's big bet is that as more and more companies are seeking to exit China … India is poised to play in a very big way.” Potential winners also includeVietnam and Indonesia: Toy manufacturer Bratz, maker of popular fashion dolls, announced it would relocate factories to the three countries last week.
Listen: On the GZERO World Podcast with Ian Bremmer, we ask The Economist's editor-in-chief Zanny Minton Beddoes: Did Wall Street get President Trump wrong?
Candidate Trump promised to lower taxes and drastically reduce government regulation. This message resonated as much with Wall Street as it did with Main Street. After surviving, if not thriving, under President Trump's first term in office, the business community no longer feared Trump's unpredictability. They overlooked his fixation on tariffs and his promises of mass deportations.
However, the first months of Trump 2.0 have been a time of economic warfare and market volatility. President Trump slapped tariffs on America's largest trading partners and closest allies and began to make good on a promise to deport millions of illegal immigrants. So where is this all heading, and what does it mean for the rest of the world?