Confusion in UK and EU as Trump’s 15% global tariff creates ‘an unholy mess’ – business live

Confusion continues as to whether Donald Trump’s new 15% tariffs kick in tomorrow in the UK or the European Union, despite the US trade representative Jamieson Greer’s assurances that nothing changes for the 20-odd countries the US has already agreed tariff deals with.The new president of the British Chambers of Commerce, Andy Haldane, told the BBC he believed that the 15% tariffs did apply from tomorrow unless the government hears otherwise.Haldane told the BBC Today programme:double quotation mark“We are 10% [tariff rate with the US]. If he [Trump] follows through tomorrow, that will be 15% and that will mean UK sits towards the bottom the league table in terms of who’s been made worst off by the measures of the weekend.”And the German confederation of businesses, BDI, called on the EU to “quickly approach the US and provide clarity on tariffs and trade rules”

UK job vacancies ‘fall to lowest level since pandemic’

The number of job vacancies in the UK has tumbled to the lowest level in five years, research suggests, falling to levels not seen since the pandemic.The number of jobs being advertised slid by 3% in January to 695,000, according to the job search site Adzuna, marking the first time advertised vacancies have dropped below 700,000 since January 2021.Graduate jobs fell below 10,000 for the first time since Adzuna began tracking this in 2016.The research comes days after official figures showed unemployment in the UK had risen to a five-year high of 5.2%, at a time when wage growth is slowing and concerns are increasing that young people are bearing the brunt of the slowdown in hiring

US farmers are rejecting multimillion-dollar datacenter bids for their land: ‘I’m not for sale’

When two men knocked on Ida Huddleston’s door last May, they carried a contract worth more than $33m in exchange for the Kentucky farm that had fed her family for centuries.According to Huddleston, the men’s client, an unnamed “Fortune 100 company”, sought her 650 acres (260 hectares) in Mason county for an unspecified industrial development. Finding out any more would require signing a non-disclosure agreement.More than a dozen of her neighbors received the same knock. Searching public records for answers, they discovered that a new customer had applied for a 2

Amazon’s cloud ‘hit by two outages caused by AI tools last year’

Amazon’s huge cloud computing arm reportedly experienced at least two outages caused by its own artificial intelligence tools, raising questions about the company’s embrace of AI as it lays off human employees.A 13-hour interruption to Amazon Web Services’ (AWS) operations in December was caused by an AI agent, Kiro, autonomously choosing to “delete and then recreate” a part of its environment, the Financial Times reported.AWS, which provides vital infrastructure for much of the internet, suffered several outages last year.One incident, in October, downed dozens of sites for hours and prompted discussion over the concentration of online services on infrastructure owned by a few massive companies. AWS has won 189 UK government contracts worth £1

England T20 series in South Africa scrapped due to franchise schedule clash

England’s planned Twenty20 series in South Africa next January has been scrapped owing to a clash with the domestic SA20 tournament in the latest indication of the growing primacy of franchise cricket.The Guardian revealed earlier this month that the white-ball leg of England’s tour was under threat as a result of a scheduling clash with SA20, which was due to run from 9 January until 14 February 2027.England will play three Tests in Johannesburg, Centurion and Cape Town in December and January, which were due to be followed by three T20s and three one-day internationals, but in a full schedule announced on Monday the shorter white-ball games have been removed from the itinerary.Confirmation of the schedule follows weeks of negotiations between the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) and Cricket South Africa (CSA), which has agreed to delay the start of SA20 to squeeze in three ODIs between 10 and 15 January. As a result of SA20 having already booked South Africa’s major venues however, the ODIs will take place in smaller grounds at Paarl and Bloemfontein

Mercedes magic and Ferrari’s rapid starts: what we learned from F1 testing

The big four – Mercedes, Red Bull, Ferrari and McLaren – have been at pains throughout testing to claim they are not the top dog, in something of an inverse Mexican standoff, each decrying their own strengths. Undeniably, however, Mercedes emerge from the three pre-season tests looking strong.Mercedes’ car and engine were reliable, completing the most laps of any team. Perhaps most importantly the car looks balanced and easy to handle, planted through the corners, in stark contrast to their travails of recent years. It is performing just as the simulation data predicted, so George Russell has been purring