'Economic D-Day', Canada tariffs and Tesla recall

Hi, I'm Carmel Crimson Dublin, it's Monday, August 24th. Today, the U.S. threatens economic de-dafe Iran and its trade partners. Tesla and other car makers begin a record recall in China. And, a cyclosporiasis is impacting farmers, even when there's been no outbreak. This is Reuters World News, bringing you everything you need to know from the front lines in ten minutes, seven days a week. The U.S. is threatening Iran with what it's calling "the greatest financial offensive ever marshalled." Treasury Secretary Scott Besant will hold a press conference later today, promising to reveal severe economic measures, not just on Iran, but on its trade partners. U.S. officials haven't explicitly named those partners, but China is the biggest buyer of Iran's oil exports. Tony Monroe is our Asia Energy and Commodities editor. The U.S. has sanctioned Tehran and its oil trade for years. And China has largely disregarded that. Now, there are some nuances to that. China is the biggest buyer of Iranian oil, but its big state oil companies don't buy Iranian oil. So, what China has been buying has been purchased by the independent refiners known as teapots. And over the years, the U.S. has imposed sanctions specifically, selectively against small refiners. So, there have been sanctions that the U.S. has imposed on China's Iranian oil consumption, but they have not actually stopped volumes. Of Iranian oil from reaching China. What has had an impact, frankly, is the recent blockade. China has called for a diplomatic solution. As Tony says, it's an awkward time for the U.S. if they do choose to impose fresh measures. We have seen, you know, in the recent past, quite a bit of tit-for-tat retaliation between China and the U.S. What is interesting contextually is that, you know, exactly a month from now, Chinese President Xi Jinping is due to visit Washington. And so, it is an awkward time to impose fresh sanctions on China at this moment. I think you're going to see Mark Carney come to the table very, very quickly because it's going to be devastating in force country. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy there, speaking on Fox News Sunday with Shannon Brein, accusing Canada of taking advantage of the U.S. It's a sour start to the week in terms of relations between the neighbors after trade talks broke down, prompting tit-for-tat tariff announcements. But how would Trump's promised tariffs hit Canada? Our economic correspondent for Canada, Promet Mukherjee, breaks it down. So, these products are taking a hit on almost $20 billion of Canadian exports to the United States. And which, if you look at it from a very objective point of view, it's not a huge impact because it just affects 5% of Canada's exports to the U.S. But what it impacts is actually the critical sectors like the lumber, the soft food lumber, wood products industry essentially, and the wine industry, then the dairy industry. So, there will be some kind of job losses, there will be some kind of business flushes in these particular sectors. For more on how markets are digesting the prospect of tougher sanctions on Iran and a trade war with Canada, here's Mike Dullin from our sister podcast Morning Bid. Well, economic warfare seems to be the theme of the early part of this week. We had the collapse of the U.S. kind of trade talks on Friday, which means a full-blown trade war there is likely with Canada promising dollar for dollar retaliation. And Scott Besson, the Treasury Secretary, is about to detail economic sanctions against Iran. What he calls economic D-Day in attempt to squeeze Iran's economy by targeting third countries. The details of that will be out later in this session. All the prices down ahead of that and stock markets quite nervy. Thanks, Mike. You can catch Morning Bid wherever you get your podcasts. A U.S. sailor on board the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier says his immigrant father has been taken into federal immigration detention. The Department of Homeland Security has confirmed that U.S. border patrol arrested Louis Manuel Abiles Roja, originally from Nicaragua, after conducting a vehicle stop in Key West Florida. His son Joshua wrote on Facebook that he'd been deployed for over nine months when he got a call that his dad was taken by ice, calling it heartbreaking. The DHS says Louis entered the U.S. illegally and would remain in detention pending removal proceedings. It says having a family member in the military doesn't give anyone a free pass. Now to West Africa, where a landslide at a landfill in Guinea's capital has killed at least 30 people. After heavy rains overnight, triggered the collapse of a massive mound of waste engulfing nearby tents and shacks. Mamaduba Bangura was sleeping nearby. He says a loud noise welcome around 2 a.m. He went outside to see what was happening before a second wave of trash struck and brought down the house. The incident occurred less than a week after the government announced plans to close the site and relocate the waste because of the threat it posed. Fast fashion retailer Sheen's valuation has crumpled by about 70% from a private market peak of nearly $100 billion dollars four years ago. The company is looking to raise up to $1.77 billion in a Hong Kong IPO. Summer Zen, our Asia funds correspondent, explains how the U.S. and Europe imposing additional fees on small parcels from China have hit Sheen hard. For example, for a 3 euro t-shirt you buy on Sheen, now you need to maybe pay 6 euro for that product because of the fee. What's worse is that Sheen's IPO comes into a challenging time. Now most investors this is focusing on AI and tech-related names. So Sheen has to cut valuation aggressively to attracting investors. Staying in China, Tesla and eight other automakers are recalling over 4 million vehicles there over concerns that doors may be difficult to open in an emergency. Most of the vehicles being recalled are Tesla's. It's the country's largest automotive recall and includes software updates, warning labels and improved markings around door handles. One specific design feature Beijing is banning is concealed door handles, making it the first country to phase out a design popularized by Tesla. Our U.S. auto's editor, Mike Colias, explains. These are electrically controlled door handles, so they sit flush to the door of the car and then when the owner approaches they pop out. It's to help with the aerodynamics, that's why we see a lot of these on electric cars. It's also just kind of a minimalist cool look. Now, Tesla and others have a manual release inside the car that you should be able to, you know, manually open the door. The issue, some people have said, is that it's not clear, it's not intuitive, they're hard to figure out how to do that from inside. So the two remedies that Tesla and others are taking, they're going to have a label to better sort of indicate where to buy that in the car. And also they're pushing out a software update that would allow the windows to go down as soon as, as soon as there's a collision, we don't really know how that would work. This recall essentially is only in China as far as we know, we have not heard from Tesla as to whether or not they plan a similar move in Europe or the United States. Regulators in both of them said they're looking at this issue, but they've not gone as far as China to ban them. Taylor Farms, the fruit and vegetable supplier at the center of the massive US cyclosporiasis outbreak this summer, has become a dominant force in the fresh produce industry, shipping them to some of the largest restaurant chains, including McDonald's and Taco Bell. And while the outbreak has been traced back to a supplier in Mexico, our agriculture reporter Tom Pulancek visited the Salinas Valley in California to understand how it's been impacting growers beyond Taylor Farms. No products grown in the US have been linked to the outbreak, but consumers are still nervous about buying and eating fresh produce. That has hurt demand for the products from this region, and some farmers have needed to destroy their crops as a result. The downturn in demand has also reduced working hours for employees in local processing facilities, and it's put a squeeze on the industry here. Taylor Farms and other companies say that they have strict food safety standards, if there's also regular water testing that goes on. Farmers here are waiting for consumer confidence to return, and they hope that consumers get a better handle on which products are okay for them to buy in the grocery stores and to consumer restaurants. 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