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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Mexico raises tariffs on imports from Asia. Live from the UK, this is the Marketplace Morning Report from the BBC World Service. I'm William Lee Adams. Good morning. Mexico's parliament has voted in favor of the bill that imposes tariffs of between 5 and 50 percent on more than 1,400 products from Asian nations, including China, that don't have a trade deal with Mexico.
The new levies will take effect starting next year. The BBC's Nick Marsh has the details. Nick, hi. Hi, William. So Nick, how far reaching are these tariffs? Well, it's quite significant.
Chapter 2: What tariffs has Mexico imposed on imports from Asia?
Mexico has effectively decided to impose import taxes on hundreds of goods from any Asian country it doesn't have a free trade agreement with. So that includes South Korea, Thailand, India, but by far the biggest and the most important is the one you mentioned, China. So starting in January,
steel, aluminium, textiles, car parts, you name it, they'll be taxed between 5% and 50%, depending on the item. And when it comes to China, we're talking about $130 billion worth of goods every year. So it is a very significant chunk of what comes into Mexico now subject to import taxes. Has Mexico's government explained what's behind the introduction of the tariffs?
If you ask Claudia Scheinbaum, Mexico's president, it is to protect Mexican jobs, Mexican manufacturers in the face of a deluge of cheap Chinese goods that they're not able to compete with. It's the reason that anyone really puts tariffs in. If you ask China, it's because she is under enormous pressure from Donald Trump.
to do it so for two reasons firstly because her country mexico itself is bearing the brunt of u.s tariffs and she's desperate to get them removed so by tariffing chinese goods she's showing donald trump they're on the same page and she can go into any talks showing that the u.s is the preferred trading partner of mexico essentially not any asian country
Secondly, there is a feeling in the US, which has been growing, that Mexico has become a bit of a backdoor for Chinese goods to get into America and therefore avoid Trump's tariff. So if you're a Chinese car parts factory and you send your goods to Mexico tariff-free, then you can sell them on to the US.
Now, the White House has clamped down on that to a certain extent, but there's been this desire in the United States to try and align the whole of the American continent. against Beijing and Beijing's economic might. Now, China is not happy about this, as you can imagine. It said Mexico is under coercion to do this. Nick, thanks for joining us on Marketplace.
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Chapter 3: What is the significance of Mexico's new tariffs on trade?
My pleasure. Okay, let's do the numbers. copper climbed as much as 1.5% to $11,600 a metric ton, close to its record high after the U.S. Federal Reserve cut interest rates to a three-year low. Elsewhere, the Indian rupee fell 0.6% to $90.49 per dollar. That's a record low. The rupee has fallen more than 5% this year.
Survivors of a deadly typhoon in the Philippines have filed a legal claim in Britain against the oil and gas giant Shell. They're seeking compensation, saying the company's release of huge amounts of greenhouse gases made the storm more severe. Typhoon Rai struck the Philippines just before Christmas in 2021, killing more than 400 people and displacing tens of thousands.
Shell has denied the legal claim as baseless. Drones have become a key weapon on the modern battlefield, especially in the war between Russia and Ukraine. And making drones and developing the technology to thwart them has become a lucrative business, as the BBC's Gideon Long reports. In a clearing in a forest in Ukraine, a soldier sends a drone high into the air.
It's a small device, maybe 30 centimetres across, with rotor blades on each corner. A standard commercial drone. The kind of thing you might use to take aerial footage at your wedding or birthday party. But strap a bomb to it and it becomes a deadly weapon. The Russians and Ukrainians have used them to devastating effect.
Before Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022, there were just a handful of companies in Ukraine making drones. Now there are hundreds. Stacey Pettijohn is director of the Defense Program at the Center for a New American Security in Washington and the author of several reports on drone warfare. This has been the first full-blown drone war ever.
In Ukraine, you found that there are a million small startups. There are a ton of mom-and-pop shops where people are making drones and assembling them in their apartments, in their garages, and donating them to the forces, in addition to established industries. Ksenia Kalmas is one of those mom-and-pop drone producers. Before the war, she was a floral artist with a flower shop in Kiev.
But after 2022, she set up a company called Klin Drones. It was just obvious decision for me. I just wanted to help my country, help my people and military. I helped them with different stuff. And at that moment, I realized that all the requests were for drones. And where do you get the parts for the drones from?
Do you have to buy them in the frames or are you producing them yourselves using 3D printers? Where do you get the parts? we're focused on Ukrainian components mostly. We don't want to give money to China. So we buy components in Ukraine. Ksenia's company relies on donations, but elsewhere drones are big business.
US company AeroVironment has seen its share price soar over 500% since the invasion of Ukraine. Portugal's Tekova is valued at over a billion dollars. And Germany's Stark is also expanding its operations. So what are the likely next developments in drone warfare?
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Chapter 4: Why is Mexico introducing tariffs on Chinese goods?
But Stacey Pettijohn at the Centre for a New American Security says that will evolve. I do think there are going to be further changes in the future as autonomy advances. That's going to be the next real shift. In the meantime, back in Kiev, former floral artist Ksenia Kalamas says she will continue to assemble small, cheap drones for use on the front line.
I'm the BBC's Gideon Long for Marketplace. And finally, the popular Australian soap opera Neighbours is coming to an end again less than three years after Amazon rebooted the series. During its 40-year run, it made famous some of the world's biggest stars, including Margot Robbie and Kylie Minogue. In the UK, I'm William Lee Adams with the Marketplace Morning Report from the BBC World Service.