Canada, Ukraine talks and Tesla’s stock fall
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Today, he's vowed to take on Trump's trade war. Mark Carney is Canada's next prime minister. Trump touts progress with Ukraine as Zelensky heads to Saudi Arabia to try and get peace talks back on track. And is Elon Musk toxic for Tesla? It's Monday, March 10th. This is Reuters World News, bringing you everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes every weekday. I'm Tara Oakes in Liverpool.

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— In first place, the next prime minister of Canada, Mark Carney — Mark Carney being confirmed as Justin Trudeau's successor and becoming leader of Canada's ruling Liberal Party The former central banker takes over at a tumultuous time, with Canada in the middle of a trade war with the United States

Carney took aim at U.S. President Donald Trump during his victory speech. And Canada never, ever will be part of America in any way, shape or form. Reporter Anamela Paperny has more.

I think we're watching a party that was on the ropes after almost a decade in power struggle to reimagine itself as it seeks to hang on to power. And it's trying to portray itself as Canada's best shot at prevailing in the face of the

daunting headwinds. And I think what we're going to see over the next several weeks and couple of months is Canada deciding what kind of country it wants to be and who it wants at the helm. And Carney is the first person who will hold the office without having been a politician. What challenges will he face as he takes the reins? Probably the first will be

a general election. Sources are saying that he will likely call one himself, probably within the next couple of weeks. Twinned with that, at the same time, he's going to have to figure out what to do with Donald Trump. I don't think I can overstate how upset Canadians are by Trump's threats, both of tariffs, but more disturbingly, regarding annexing Canada forcibly.

And Canada has to decide, is it going to roll out retaliatory tariffs? And if so, what does that look like? And when does it happen? And this is going to require a lot more finessing. That could be a challenge for somebody who simply does not have elected political experience. He's never been elected. So he's still learning as he goes. It's a nervy start to the week for investors with concerns about the health of the U.S. economy weighing on markets.

Here's Carmel Crimmins with more. President Trump appears to be at the center of investor worries. He sidestepped a question in a Fox News interview on Sunday about whether his trade tariffs could trigger a U.S. recession. As one analyst put it, that's as good as a yes as far as markets are concerned. The R-word has been making the rounds among traders and analysts. A Reuters poll found 91% of economists view the odds of a downturn to have increased under Trump's shifting trade policies.

U.S. immigration agents have arrested a Palestinian grad student at Columbia University. Mahmoud Khalil has played a prominent role at the college's pro-Palestinian protests. And his arrest comes as Trump vows a crackdown on anti-Israel activists. Khalil has a green card and an American wife who's eight months pregnant. That's according to local news reports.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on social media, we will be revoking the visas and or green cards of Hamas supporters in America so they can be deported. And Homeland Security say they arrested him because he led activities aligned with Hamas. Neither department has said Khalil is accused of giving material support to Hamas or of any other crime.

Khalil says the protests are an anti-war movement that includes Jewish students and groups, and they reject anti-Semitism allegations. Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky is traveling to Saudi Arabia today. Zelensky will meet with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ahead of high-level talks between U.S. and Ukrainian representatives on Tuesday.

That's set to be the first meeting between delegates from Ukraine and the U.S. since a meeting between Zelensky and President Donald Trump devolved into an argument last month. Speaking to reporters on Sunday, President Trump says he expects good results. Maybe not in the distant future. You're going to have some pretty good results.

coming out of Saudi Arabia this week. — Hanging over the talks in Jeddah is the fate of a minerals deal between the U.S. and Ukraine. — Well, I think they will sign the minerals deal, but we want them to— I want them to want peace.

Pesha Magid covers Saudi Arabia from Riyadh. So Pesha, what do we expect from this meeting between Zelensky and Mohammed bin Salman? Well, there's a lot still up in the air. And it seems as though there's going to be two rounds of meetings. So one between Zelensky and Mohammed bin Salman, another one between Ukrainian officials and U.S. officials and JETDA. And...

It's likely that there will probably be discussions of what happened two weeks ago after the kerfuffle between Trump and Zelensky, discussions further on the mineral deal, discussions on negotiating a potential peace between Russia and Ukraine. But exactly what might come out of these meetings is still up in the air.

So how have Saudi Arabia and MBS in particular become this diplomatic nexus? How does this benefit the Saudis? That's a big question. There are several things that Saudi could get from it. Their closeness to the Trump administration is something that I think is very important to them because I think they're hoping to influence the Trump administration's policy in

Yeah.

And in order to do that, they do not want to have any attacks from Iran. They don't want there to be further instability from Gaza. I think that facilitating these talks puts them in a good position with the Trump administration. But whether they'll get anything directly out of this is still to be known. Hundreds protesting in Damascus, condemning the ongoing violence in Syria.

New leader Ahmed Sharar has vowed to hunt down the perpetrators of the violence, which has pitted loyalists to ex-president Bashar al-Assad against the new Islamist rulers. A Wall Monitor says at least 1,000 people have already been killed in what was Assad's coastal heartland. Tesla's stock has defied gravity for years. But over the last three months, the EV company's stock has dropped by nearly half.

And yet, Tesla's valuation continues to be far higher than the world's biggest auto and technology firms.

Reporter Chris Kirkham has been looking at what's causing investors to wonder if the party's over. There's a couple concerns from investors. One is, is Musk's time with the Department of Government Efficiency and government cost-cutting, is that distracting him from running Tesla? That's one concern. And then I think the other concern is, is Musk's increasing involvement in politics tarnishing Tesla's image and Tesla's reputation among buyers? Because you've got this interesting dynamic where

You know, I think historically most Tesla owners have been more liberal, kind of more environmentally minded consumers. And Musk's politics are currently pretty opposite to that. When Donald Trump was campaigning, he was running on a lot of things that seemed to be in conflict with Tesla's core EV business. So what was driving the run up in the stock after the election?

What a lot of investors and analysts who were bullish on the stock, there was sort of a feeling that maybe Elon Musk's support of Donald Trump in the election, maybe this could help Tesla's ambitions for self-driving technology and robo-taxis. And that's really where they believe the future value of Tesla is.

that they're going to solve driverless technology and that this could sort of unlock really a whole new era of transportation technology and that this could be a huge multi-trillion dollar business potentially like according to some analysts estimates but now the fundamentals of Tesla's current business are kind of coming into focus and there's

There's some signs that Tesla's business is really struggling right now. There have been some pretty steep declines in sales in markets, including Germany and France. And this all kind of comes at the time that Musk is supporting far-right politics in Europe. We're starting to see a protest movement rise up against Tesla at Tesla stores. And so I think investors are now starting to say, well, maybe Tesla's electric vehicle business matters.

matters more than we thought. And maybe there are some troubles on the horizon. Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile. I don't know if you knew this, but anyone can get the same premium wireless for $15 a month plan that I've been enjoying. It's not just for celebrities. So do like I did and have one of your assistant's assistants switch you to Mint Mobile today. I'm

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Used in cooking, cosmetics and cleaning products, palm oil makes up more than half of global vegetable oil shipments. You can find a link to the story in today's pod description. And for more on any of the stories from today, check out Reuters.com or the Reuters app. Don't forget to follow us on your favorite podcast player. And we'll be back tomorrow with our daily headline show.