426 stories · Page 32 of 43
On 19 Dec 2025, the White House secured voluntary deals with nine additional pharmaceutical companies to peg U.S. Medicaid and launch prices to the lowest charged in any rich nation, expanding Trump’s MFN drug-pricing program.
On 16-17 Dec 2025, tractor blockades and a last-minute Italian swing behind France stripped the Council of the qualified-majority needed, pushing the Mercosur trade vote—and von der Leyen’s 20 Dec signing trip—into 2026.
On 18 Dec 2025 Beijing flipped the switch on Hainan’s full “first-line open, second-line controlled” customs system, instantly expanding zero-tariff coverage from 1,900 to 6,637 items across the island-wide free-trade port.
On 19 Dec 2025 ByteDance signed binding agreements to place 50 % of TikTok’s U.S. business into a new joint venture with Oracle, Silver Lake and MGX, slated to launch 22 Jan 2026—one day before President Trump’s latest enforcement deadline.
On 18 Dec 2025 in Muscat, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Sultan Haitham bin Tarik concluded a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement that wipes tariffs on 98.08 % of Omani lines for Indian exports and liberalises labour mobility, while Modi was simultaneously decorated with the Order of Oman during the visit marking 70 years of bilateral ties.
On 18 Dec 2025, Beijing transitioned the entire 30,000-km² island of Hainan into a special customs supervision zone, slashing tariffs and streamlining controls to plug the Free Trade Port into both global supply chains and China’s domestic market.
Amazon entered fluid negotiations to inject over $10 billion into OpenAI in exchange for the startup shifting part of its training workload onto AWS’s in-house Trainium chips, marking the first mega financing round since OpenAI ended Microsoft’s cloud exclusivity in October 2025.
On 16 Dec 2025 Washington publicly warned it will trigger Section 301 remedies—tariffs or service restrictions—against nine named EU firms unless Brussels relaxes its Digital Markets/Services enforcement against U.S. giants.
On 16 Dec 2025 the European Commission replaced its planned full ban on new combustion cars with a requirement that 90 % of fleetwide CO₂ emissions be eliminated by 2035, reopening the door for hybrids and limited petrol/diesel sales.
On 16 Dec 2025 the European Parliament approved a tougher safeguard package—cutting the farm-import ‘alarm bell’ to a 5 % surge and adding reciprocity rules—sending the Mercosur deal into emergency talks with national governments just four days before Ursula von der Leyen hopes to sign it in Brazil.
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