Today’s top news stories

• A South Korean court ordered Chey Tae-won, chair of AI chipmaker SK Hynix, to pay more than $640mn to his ex-wife in the country’s most expensive divorce payout ever.

• Partners at the top UK law firms pocketed record pay packages last year, as a resurgence of activity in Asia offset the more sluggish domestic market.

• Tech groups including Nvidia, Palantir, Microsoft and Meta have urged the US not to restrict “open-weight” AI models, as Washington threatens to target Chinese labs over fears of intellectual property theft.

Good evening.

Washington has hit 60 trading partners with tariffs of at least 10 per cent, as President Donald Trump attempts to reconstruct the tariff wall that the US Supreme Court razed earlier this year.

Under the new regime, countries such as the UK, EU, Canada and Mexico face a 10 per cent duty, while others, such as China, India, Brazil and Australia, face duties of 12.5 per cent. For some European countries, such as France and Germany, this move slightly reduces the US effective tariff rates they face, according to monitoring body Global Trade Alert.

The White House’s rationale for tariffs keeps changing. It imposed Section 232 tariffs on imports such as semiconductors on “national security” grounds. It used “emergency” powers to institute the “liberation day” tariffs unveiled in the Rose Garden last year, which the Supreme Court ruled illegal and terminated in February. Following that, it imposed tariffs under the Section 122 authority, designed to remedy balance-of-payments problems.

The Section 122s expire today, which could explain the latest salvo. The new duties come under Section 301 of the 1974 Trade Act, under the justification that targeted countries have failed to prohibit “forced labour” in their supply chains. Building back the tariff wall using multiple legal levers could prevent a court from causing another blanket collapse of the tariff regime, analysts said.

How should we understand Trump’s tariff campaign? It is not simply a return to 1930s protectionism, says FT contributing editor Patrick Foulis. “Instead it is best described as a project to ensure the US cannot be coerced economically and ‘gets paid’ for the superpower services it provides to the world,” Foulis writes.

But even if the White House views tariff revenue as compensation for US dominance in financial markets, currency, tech and defence, trading partners are getting fed up.

Japan today described the tariffs as “regrettable”, while Australia said they were “unjustified”. Singapore said there was “no technical or economic basis to impose tariffs upon us”. The EU struck a conciliatory tone, but has a retaliatory package prepared that would apply to €93bn of US exports if necessary.

China’s foreign affairs ministry, meanwhile, said: “We oppose unilateral tariff measures of all kinds . . . Tariff wars and trade wars are in no one’s interest”.

Picture of the day

Economics

• Oil prices fell back below $100 a barrel after crossing that mark yesterday as Trump said he was considering a “massive attack” on Iran.

• Hong Kong’s stock exchange is relaxing standards to compete with US and Chinese rivals, saying it would allow confidential listing filings and dual-class share structures that give some shareholders greater voting rights.

• South Korean groups, flush with cash from the AI boom, are piling money into the US, with foreign direct investment from the country during the first quarter having more than doubled year on year to $10.2bn.

• A senior UK police officer called on Prime Minister Andy Burnham to prioritise tackling fraud, which accounts for 46 per cent of all crimes in England and Wales.

Chart of the day

UK-listed housebuilders have issued eight profit warnings during the first half of 2026, while completions languish behind targets. The industry is hopeful it will benefit from fresh political attention under Burnham.

Business

• Russian online retail group Wildberries, the country’s answer to Amazon, has become a key target for Ukrainian long-range drone strikes in an attempt to bring home the impact of President Vladimir Putin’s invasion to ordinary citizens.

• BP is in advanced discussions to sell its solar power arm Lightsource to a consortium backed by Kuwait’s sovereign wealth fund, as the company retreats from its years-long green energy push.

• GIC, Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund, has said the latest Chinese AI models have significantly raised competition with US rivals and will cut the cost of adoption globally, as it ploughs billions of dollars into the technology.

• Wise’s application for a US banking licence was rejected because of “deficiencies” in the fintech’s anti-money laundering checks and its lack of understanding of the banking law, the US regulator said.

• Bond investors are looking for significantly higher yields on the latest $12bn Meta-backed data centre deal compared with the terms secured just nine months ago, as markets price in higher risks around AI financing.

• Top shipping insurers told brokers that they will not sell war cargo insurance to Saudi Arabia-linked ships in the Red Sea, following attacks by Yemen’s Houthi rebels.

When Lancashire couple Kate and Matt Dean were let down this month by wedding caterers on their big day, local restaurants stepped up at the last minute to rescue the situation.