Europe rallies round Ukraine, tariffs, crypto reserve and Oscars
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Today, Europe goes into damage control mode on Ukraine after that disastrous Oval Office meet. The countdown to U.S. tariffs going into effect on Canada and Mexico. And Onora triumphs at a politically muted Oscars. It's Monday, March 3rd. This is Reuters World News, bringing you everything you need to know from the frontlines in 10 minutes every weekday. I'm Tara Oakes in Liverpool.

A shouting match that rocked global diplomacy. You're gambling with World War III. U.S. President Donald Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance accusing Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky of not being grateful for America's support and threatening to pull it. You've got to be more thankful.

After that heated Oval Office meeting, a visibly shaken Zelensky was welcomed to London by British Prime Minister Keir Starmer. At a weekend summit, European leaders offering a strong support to Ukraine, agreeing to spend more on defence to show Trump the continent can protect itself. Starmer saying that Britain, Ukraine, France and some others would form a coalition of the willing and draw up a peace plan to take to Trump. Europe must do the heavy lifting.

But to support peace in our continent and to succeed, this effort must have strong US backing. Leaders have not provided details of their plan.

Reuters European Affairs editor Andrew Gray is in Brussels. What they're trying to do is, on the one hand, say to the Americans, we get it, we're willing to do more, we're going to significantly increase our defence spending, we the Europeans will take the big risks, we'll put the boots on the ground, but we need some kind of umbrella, some kind of support from you, partly just to make this whole thing work.

and also as a backstop to tell the Russians, don't mess with us because if you do, you're messing with America as well. And you have Elon Musk tweeting that the US should leave the UN and NATO. I mean, it seems like it's a pretty precarious time for the West. I think it is precarious. I mean, Keir Starmer said in his remarks today that we're at a crossroads in history. And that doesn't seem like an overstatement, to be honest.

I think the Europeans feel they have to try. Nobody can be sure how this is all going to play out. But I feel like they feel they have to give it their absolute best shot and see if they can bring the Trump administration along and keep them engaged in Europe and Ukraine and European security because the alternative is pretty frightening, to be honest. Palestinians in Jabali are loading food onto donkey-drawn carts and bicycles as Israel blocks the entry of aid trucks into Gaza.

The aid block comes as the ceasefire standoff escalates. Israel says hostages must be released for the ceasefire to continue and has agreed a temporary extension for the Ramadan and Passover seasons. Hamas has rejected the 42-day extension and says it wants to move to the scheduled phase two and negotiations for a permanent end to the war. Andrew Cuomo is running for mayor of New York.

The former governor resigned in disgrace just over three years ago over sexual harassment claims as well as misleading the public over Covid-19 deaths. Cuomo denies those allegations. The Vatican says Pope Francis is stable and no longer needs mechanical ventilation to breathe. The 88-year-old pontiff has been in hospital for more than two weeks battling double pneumonia.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and King Charles sit down for talks in London today, with sovereignty high on the agenda after Trump suggested making Canada the 51st U.S. state. The outgoing prime minister said last month that Trump's suggestion to absorb Canada is, quote, a real thing.

March has started with a bang for crypto funds after President Trump once again talked up plans for a strategic crypto reserve. Carmel Grimmins tells us more. Trump announced in a social media post the names of the five digital assets he expects to include in the strategic reserve. And they are Bitcoin, Ether, XRP, Solana and Cardano. The post has helped the crypto market recoup some of the losses it clocked up last month. But a lot of things are still unclear.

like how much crypto the government would actually buy to create this fund and how those purchases would be funded. Some analysts have suggested the government could use crypto seized in criminal cases to create the fund, but that wouldn't create new demand for digital assets. Trump is hosting the first White House crypto summit on Friday, so maybe we'll get more details then.

And if you're interested in volatile markets, check out the latest episode of Reuters Econ World. It's all about your morning cup of coffee and why it's set to get more expensive. You can catch the show on the Reuters app or wherever you listen to your podcasts. President Trump has promised to hit Canada and Mexico with 25% tariffs across the board starting Tuesday, as well as adding an extra 10% duty on Chinese imports.

The White House says it's an effort to curb fentanyl flows into the US. We caught up with our White House reporter Trevor Honeycutt, who is covering Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.

We know that Canadian, Mexican and Chinese officials have been in touch with the White House about these proposed tariffs. And they've been working behind the scenes to get them stalled, get them delayed or get them put off entirely. And so what we're going to see this coming week is whether those negotiations have borne fruit yet. Commerce Secretary Howard Letnick

indicated on Sunday that there might be some wiggle room on exactly how high those tariffs are gonna go. And so that 25% number that's been floated by Trump himself might not actually go into effect

this week. So if this goes into effect, American consumers will notice pretty quickly, right? That's right. And that certainly companies that are trying to figure out how to make cars and all kinds of other things are going to notice these impacts pretty quickly. And then we also still have kind of looming over markets right now, the question of

how many more tariffs are going to come after this initial round on Canada, Mexico and China. President Trump has indicated that we're going to see auto tariffs as soon as April 2nd.

as well as what he calls reciprocal tariffs on all kinds of countries around the world at that same date. And he's also flagged additional tariffs on semiconductor chips and pharmaceuticals. And so that's going to be an area of focus going forward, as will this question of retaliation. What do all these countries do in response? And so that's another area that we're going to have to watch.

At the Oscars, it was Enora that stole the headlines, winning five Academy Awards, including the big one, Best Picture. Its director, Sean Baker, made history by winning four awards. And Enora's 25-year-old star, Mikey Madison, won Best Actress. Adrian Brody won Best Actor for The Brutalist.

Watching the ceremony for us was Lisa Richwine. I think it was a surprise that Onora won so many awards. They won five awards. Mikey Madison, the star, won Best Actress. That was definitely a surprise. Demi Moore had been the heavy favorite for that award. This was an unpredictable Oscars year. There were many films in contention, but Onora is the clear winner. What about Oscar moments? Anything stand out or any politics?

Well, there wasn't a lot of politics. Donald Trump was not even mentioned once. Kind of a surprise as some hosts and others have taken jabs at him in the past. The closest thing was a joke by Conan O'Brien where he talked about a Nora, which is about a young woman who marries the son of a Russian oligarch and has to stand up to his family. And Conan made a joke that I guess Americans were excited to finally see someone stand up to a powerful Russian. Yeah.

I see. So no big ticket political statements then? The best documentary winner was a film done by an Israeli and a Palestinian about the region there. And both of the speakers talked about the ongoing conflict with one of them saying, you know, there could be a reasonable solution.

that would satisfy both sides and saying the United States, in his view, was blocking that kind of a solution. That was a very heavy political statement on a topical film. There was a mention of Ukraine here and there. Daryl Hannah mentioned Ukraine before she presented an award. But overall, world politics or even U.S. politics was largely absent.

We've had the pandemic and the strikes. Is there a sense that Hollywood is back into gear or still facing challenges? There are definitely huge challenges still. And Sean Baker, who won Best Director for Nora, actually talked about one of the biggest, which is that moviegoing is dwindling as a pastime for Americans. Fewer people go to theaters. He said a thousand screenwriters.

screens were lost during the pandemic in the United States. And he really made a rallying cry to audiences to go back to cinemas and watch movies on the big screen. And for today's recommended read, we're in the Chinese village of Maotai, where the local firewater is under pressure. It's usually a bellwether for Chinese consumer demand, and its home province heavily depends on its cash flows to pay down debt.

But in the weeks ahead of Lunar New Year, the crowds who traditionally snap up the white spirit for gifts were notably smaller. There's a link to the story in the pod description. 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.