Trump softens on Zelensky, says mineral deal coming ‘soon’
Trump softens on Zelensky, says mineral deal coming ‘soon’/node/2597526
Trump softens on Zelensky, says mineral deal coming ‘soon’
US President Donald Trump and Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky meet in the White House in Washington, DC, on Feb. 28, 2025. (AFP)
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Updated 18 April 2025
Trump softens on Zelensky, says mineral deal coming ‘soon’
“I’m not blaming him, but what I am saying is that I wouldn’t say he’s done the greatest job, OK? I am not a big fan,” Trump said
He made the statement alongside visiting Italian PM Meloni, who has thrown Italy’s weight behind European efforts to help Ukraine
Updated 18 April 2025
WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump on Thursday said he does not hold Volodymyr Zelensky “responsible” for Russia’s invasion of his country but continued to criticize the pro-Western Ukrainian leader.
Trump has repeatedly made the false claim that Ukraine started the war and this week accused Zelensky of responsibility for “millions” of deaths.
“I don’t hold Zelensky responsible but I’m not exactly thrilled with the fact that that war started,” Trump said at the White House alongside visiting Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
“I’m not blaming him, but what I am saying is that I wouldn’t say he’s done the greatest job, OK? I am not a big fan.”
Zelensky earlier this week invited Trump to visit Ukraine to see the devastation wrought by the war for himself, in a Sunday interview with CBS that Trump responded to with threats against the TV network.
His invitation followed a heated row at the White House in late February between the Ukrainian president, Trump and US Vice President JD Vance, which played out in front of the media.
Meloni told reporters that “we’ve been defending freedom of Ukraine together, together we can build a just and lasting peace. We support your efforts.”
The far-right leader has thrown Italy’s weight behind European efforts to shore up Ukraine’s defenses since the full-scale Russian invasion began in February 2022.
Trump added Thursday that a deal with Ukraine on extracting the war-wracked country’s strategic minerals could be reached next week.
Kyiv and Washington had been close to signing a deal until the February clash between Trump and Zelensky temporarily derailed work on the agreement.
“We have a minerals deal which I guess is going to be signed on Thursday... next Thursday. Soon. And I assume they’re going to live up to the deal. So we’ll see. But we have a deal on that,” Trump said.
Ukraine’s Economy Minister Yulia Svyrydenko said in an X post Thursday that Kyiv had signed a “Memorandum of Intent” with Washington on a planned “Investment Fund for the Reconstruction of Ukraine.”
Svyrydenko did not provide any details on the memorandum.
“There is a lot to do, but the current pace and significant progress give reason to expect that the document will be very beneficial for both countries,” she added.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told AFP that a deal is targeted for April 26.
KARACHI: Pakistani automobile part makers fear closure of their manufacturing plants as the country moves to allow used car imports and slash tariffs to 15 percent later this month as part of reforms backed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), a Pakistan Association of Automotive Parts & Accessories Manufacturers (PAAPAM) member said on Thursday.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s government aims to expand Pakistan’s debt-ridden economy by 4.2 percent this fiscal year, which began in July, with the support of the IMF that has set out certain conditions for the South Asian nation to keep receiving tranches of its $7 billion loan that are critical for the country’s economic recovery.
Aamir Allawala, a leading PAAPAM member and a former chairman, said the IMF-backed policy measures, if implemented in their current form and without taking Pakistan’s “ground realities” into consideration, may shut 1,200 companies that have been manufacturing and supplying steel, plastic, rubber, copper, aluminum and auxiliary parts to 13 car assemblers, including local partners of Toyota, Honda, Suzuki, Hyundai, Kia Motors and Changan.
“There are some major decisions that the government has made which includes opening the import of used cars without any [vehicle] age limit,” Allawala, the CEO of Techno Auto Glass Ltd. that supplies windshields, window glass and other auto parts to Suzuki, Honda and Toyota, told reporters in Karachi on Thursday.
“Under the National Tariffs Policy, the [import] duties will be cut and that would change the automobile industry in a very strange manner,” he said, adding the new policy is expected to take effect by the end of August.
Arab News tried reaching out to Pakistani commerce ministry spokesperson Muhammad Ashraf, but he was not immediately available for a comment.
Liberalizing trade is one of the conditions set out by the IMF to help Islamabad achieve 4.2 percent economic growth.
“The new National Tariff Policy (FY25–30) should substantially streamline and reduce tariffs [customs and regulatory duties] and reduce non-tariff barriers and move away from the regime of special duties applied to imports for particular industries,” the Washington-based lender said in its country report in May.
“Trade barriers are particularly extensive in the automotive sector, and the next iteration of the automobile policy [covering fiscal years 26–31], on which consultations are still ongoing, should reduce tariffs and preferential support for local production.”
Allawala said his manufacturing plant, worth Rs4.3 billion ($15.2 million), at the Port Qasim industrial complex was running at 20 percent capacity and manufacturing 10,000 glasses a month, mainly because of what the company’s chief operating officer Arsalan Allawala called a “lack of demand.”
Besides the Techno glass manufacturing hub, Arab News visited similar facilities of Aisha Steel Mills, Agriauto Stamping Company, Rubatech Manufacturing Company, Jin Kwang Jaz and Thal Boshuku Pakistan.
While raw material manufacturer Aisha Steel Mills was hardly running its Rs22 billion ($78 million) plant, most of the other vendors were producing stamping, rubber, car seats and other accessories below capacity.
“We can produce sets for 54,000 cars a year but our current production stands at 18,000 sets due to lower demand,” said Muhammad Umer Razzaq, an official of Thal Boshuku that is a joint venture between Thal and Toyota Boshuku and Toyota Tsusho.
Faheem Kapadia, CEO of Agriauto Stamping, said while they had a capacity to supply four-wheeler auto parts for about 300,000 car units annually, his factory was catering to 130,000 vehicles only.
In recent years, Pakistan has faced high inflation, which peaked to a record 38 percent in May 2023, eroding purchasing power of the masses. Though the inflation rate has significantly declined, the World Bank last month said 45 percent of Pakistanis were now living below poverty line.
Pakistan’s car sales have dropped by more than 50 percent to 111,402 units over the last three years till June, according to the Pakistan Automotive Manufacturers Association (PAMA) data.
“The economy’s mismanagement, the kind of conditions we have, terrorism, political instability, the economic crash that happened twice, thrice resulted into the reduction of car volumes,” Allawala told Arab News, adding that up to 45 percent taxes on buying a new car can be another reason for low sales.
“It is a source of worry for us because the auto parts industry has invested billions of rupees, in fact hundreds of billions of rupees, in the auto parts manufacturing sector and there are a lot of jobs at stake.”
The government needed to be “cognizant of the policy direction to make sure that such job losses in the sector are avoided,” he said, adding that PAAPAM directly employs 500,000 skilled workers while workers associated with Pakistan’s overall automobile industry can be estimated at 2.5 million.
Sharif approved in May a “gradual but significant” reduction in Pakistan’s import tariffs that would see general customs duties capped at 15 percent, compared to current rates that sometimes exceed 100 percent.
“No car-manufacturing country in the world has allowed the import of used cars. They have a total control over the used cars’ import be that India, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, China or any other country which has its own automobile industry,” Allawala said.
India was maintaining 125 percent tariffs on car imports, Thailand 80 percent, Indonesia 60 percent and Vietnam 52 percent to protect their respective industries, according to the auto part maker.
“Pakistan is saying we are slashing the import duty to 15 percent,” Allawala exclaimed, saying PAAPAM had written a letter to the commerce ministry seeking a fact-finding mission to “see the ground reality.”
“We wrote them about three, four days ago. They have not responded yet.”
Syria forms committee to investigate Sweida violence
In a decree dated July 31, justice minister Muzher Al-Wais said a committee of seven people would look into the circumstances that led to the “events in Sweida“
Updated 18 min 30 sec ago
Reuters
BEIRUT: Syria has pledged to investigate clashes in the southern province of Sweida which killed hundreds of people last month -the second major episode of sectarian violence since the ouster of longtime Syrian leader Bashar Assad.
In a decree dated July 31, justice minister Muzher Al-Wais said a committee of seven people — including judges, lawyers and a military official — would look into the circumstances that led to the “events in Sweida” and report back within three months.
The committee would investigate reported attacks and abuses against civilians and refer anyone proven to have participated in such attacks to the judiciary.
The violence in Sweida began on July 13 between tribal fighters and Druze factions. Government forces were sent to quell the fighting but the bloodshed worsened, and Israel carried out strikes on Syrian troops in the name of the Druze.
The Druze are a minority offshoot of Islam with followers in Syria, Lebanon and Israel. Sweida province is predominantly Druze but is also home to Sunni tribes, and the communities have had longstanding tensions over land and other resources.
A US-brokered truce ended the fighting, which had raged in Sweida city and surrounding towns for nearly a week.
In March, hundreds of Alawite civilians were killed after government-aligned forces deployed to Syria’s coastal areas following a deadly attack on new government forces by militias still aligned with Assad, who hails from the Alawite minority.
Assad’s brutal crackdown on protests against him in 2011 from within Syria’s Sunni majority spiralled into a nearly 14-year war. Western leaders are keen to ensure the new government, led by a former Sunni Islamist group that has its roots in global jihad, conducts an orderly democratic transition.
The fact-finding committee established after the March killings last month referred 298 people suspected of carrying out abuses against Alawites to the judiciary.
The committee said it found no evidence of commanders ordering troops to commit violations and that 265 people had been involved in the initial attack on government forces.
Startup Wrap:Saudi firms surge as AI, food tech, and fintech deals highlight ecosystem’s rapid ascent
Updated 22 min 37 sec ago
Nour El-Shaeri
RIYADH: Ƶ’s startup ecosystem continues to gain momentum, with a surge of early- and growth-stage investments across technology-driven sectors including AI, food tech, logistics, and sports.
Kamco Invest has announced it acquired a stake in Foodics, a fast-growing restaurant technology and payments platform based in Ƶ.
The transaction, completed in the fourth quarter of 2024 but only now made public, aligns with Kamco Invest’s strategy to back high-growth, tech-enabled businesses in the Middle East and North Africa, particularly those with initial public offering potential.
Founded in 2014, Foodics serves over 33,000 restaurants with an annual gross merchandise value of over $10 billion in 2024.
The cloud-based platform offers an integrated solution for restaurant operators to manage orders, operations, finances, and access to capital through a single interface.
Kamco Invest Director of Private Equity Dalal Al-Shaya said: “We are proud to back a regional tech champion like Foodics. Its scale, innovation, and strong investor base signal an exciting growth trajectory.”
The company is targeting a public listing on Tadawul within the next two to three years.
Foodics’ most recent $170 million funding round was led by Prosus and Sanabil Investments, a fund owned by the Public Investment Fund, with participation from Sequoia Capital India, STV, Raed Ventures, and Endeavor Catalyst.
Calo raises $39m in series B extension to fuel global growth
The Calo team. Supplied
Saudi food tech startup Calo has secured a $39 million series B extension led by AlJazira Capital, bringing its total series B funding to $64 million.
The latest round follows a $25 million tranche closed in December 2024 and was oversubscribed beyond the originally targeted $50 million due to strong investor interest.
Proceeds from the round will support Calo’s international expansion, continued product development, and integration of recently acquired UK-based meal subscription companies.
Calo, which delivered more than 10 million meals in 2024, reports high-growth, nine-figure annualized revenue and claims to be the world’s fastest-growing meal subscription service.
CEO Ahmed Al-Rawi said: “We’re living in an interesting time where AI is transforming our lives, and we’re excited to be investing in cutting-edge innovation to explore how Calo can use AI to influence the future of how we discover and eat healthy food.”
The company acquired Fresh Fitness Food and Detox Kitchen to enter the European market and has since integrated both into its operations and technology stack.
Calo says it operates more than 10 physical locations across the GCC, including hospital-based outlets, and has launched operations in the UK and Oman.
Its customer base spans Ƶ, the UAE, and Bahrain, as well as Qatar, and Kuwait, with over 5,000 customers already on the waiting list in Oman, the company claimed.
In the first half of 2025, Calo said it achieved over 50 percent year-on-year growth, bolstered by a localization strategy that included the appointment of General Managers in each regional market.
Calo recently partnered with Armah Sports Co. to explore co-located retail outlets and wellness collaborations.
Armah’s founder, Fahad Al-Hagbani, has joined Calo’s board as an independent member. Calo remains headquartered in Riyadh and is planning for an IPO in Ƶ.
Flex League closes seed round to build unified racquet sports platform
Flex League currently serves nearly 10,000 players. flexibleleague.com
Flex League, a Saudi sports-tech company focused on padel and tennis, has raised a six-digit dollar seed round led by the Professional Tennis Academy and PAD-L Group.
The new capital will be used to develop a court booking system, support expansion into new Saudi cities and across the MENA region, and grow its team across engineering, product, and operations.
The platform currently serves nearly 10,000 players and allows users to join competitive leagues, book courts, and track match results.
It also offers court operators tools to manage tournaments and engage local sports communities.
CEO Ibrahim Akeel said: “With this investment, we’re creating a unified platform where players can compete, connect, and now book courts – all in one app.”
The company aims to drive deeper engagement in the region’s growing racquet sports ecosystem by blending digital matchmaking with physical play.
Sawt secures $1m to advance Arabic voice AI customer support
Sawt, a Saudi startup focused on Arabic-native voice AI systems, has closed a $1 million pre-seed round led by T2 and STV.
The funding will be used to enhance its proprietary models, scale its technical infrastructure, and grow its team as it prepares to serve millions of voice interactions.
The platform enables businesses to conduct customer support, bookings, and sales through AI voice agents that operate 24/7 with natural and intelligent responses.
In just two months since its launch, Sawt claims it served dozens of businesses and processed hundreds of thousands of calls.
Co-founder and CEO Abdulmalik Al-Saeed said: “We’re proud to contribute to this movement by building Arabic voice technology from the ground up, right here in the Kingdom.”
STV General Partner Ahmad Al-Naimi added: “Sawt exemplifies a new wave of Saudi AI-native ventures. With a strong tech edge and commercial momentum, they’re poised to lead the $800 million to $1.2 billion GCC AI call center automation market.”
Abdulkarim Al-Jarba, CEO of T2, noted that the investment supports T2’s strategy to deliver advanced technology solutions across its network.
OmniOps unveils platform to deliver sovereign AI inference services
Supplied
OmniOps has launched Bunyan, the Kingdom’s first sovereign Inference-as-a-Service platform.
The announcement follows a strategic meeting with the Minister of Communications and Information Technology, Abdullah Al-Swaha.
The platform supports AI applications in text, vision, and speech, with a focus on data sovereignty and enterprise-grade compliance.
CEO Mohammed Al-Tassan said: “Bunyan delivers unprecedented performance improvements that revolutionize how organizations deploy and scale AI applications.”
He added that the platform has demonstrated efficiency gains, including a doubling of inference speed, over 50 percent reduction in energy use, and at least 40 percent lower latency.
Bunyan provides an end-to-end infrastructure stack with model deployment tools, support for NVIDIA and Groq hardware, and access to both public and private models.
It enables organizations to build AI-driven applications such as natural language chatbots, document summarization tools, and systems for rapid insight extraction from unstructured data.
Olivery secures seed funding from Ibtikar Fund and Flat6Labs Mashreq
Olivery, a B2B Software-as-a-Service company focused on digitising logistics operations, has raised seed funding from Ibtikar Fund and Flat6Labs Mashreq Seed Fund.
The platform allows logistics providers and merchants to manage order creation, routing, delivery, and customer engagement through a no-code/low-code interface.
Since its founding in 2020, Olivery has scaled to serve over 200 active clients across nine countries.
The company plans to use the new funding to expand regionally and roll out AI-driven features including predictive routing, automated data entry, and proactive customer support.
CEO Ram Merei said: “Together with Ibtikar and Flat6Labs, we’re delivering technology that allows national couriers and independent merchants alike to operate with the speed, transparency, and reliability that modern commerce demands.”
Ibtikar’s Managing Partner Habib Hazzan stated: “Their platform is not only scalable and robust — it’s thoughtfully designed for the realities of local markets.”
Rasha Manna, general manager of Flat6Labs Mashreq Seed Fund, noted that the firm has backed Olivery from its earliest stages and remains committed to supporting its expansion.
Mataa closes seed round to expand Libya’s e-commerce infrastructure
Mataa, a Libya-based e-commerce platform, has completed its first seed investment round with backing from Libyan business angels.
The funding will be used to strengthen Mataa’s logistics network, expand its warehouse capacity, and onboard new suppliers and product categories.
Founder and CEO Ibrahim Shuwehdi stated that the round reflects growing investor confidence in Libya’s entrepreneurial potential and geographic advantage.
The company supports merchants in reaching over 6 million internet users and offers Facebook integration for easier product listing and reduced advertising costs.
“This round is not just a financial boost but a signal to the wider ecosystem to encourage more venture investment in Libyan startups and SMEs,” Shuwehdi said.
Mataa is also looking to recruit experienced regional talent to support its long-term strategy.
Iranian president to arrive in Pakistan tomorrow on state visit to discuss ties
Pakistan and Iran enjoy close ties and have signed several pacts, but the two neighbors have also been at odds over instability along their shared border
Their ties warmed up after Islamabad voiced support for Tehran during the 12-day Israel-Iran war that began after Israeli strikes on Iranian nuclear sites
ISLAMABAD: Iranian President Dr. Masoud Pezeshkian will arrive in Pakistan tomorrow on a one-day state visit to discuss bilateral relations, the Pakistani foreign office said on Friday.
Pakistan and Iran enjoy close ties and have signed several pacts in trade, energy and security in recent years. However, the two countries have also been at odds over instability along their shared porous border but have always been quick in moving to ease tensions each time.
In May, Iranian Foreign Minister Seyyed Abbas Araghchi visited Pakistan at a time of heightened tensions between Pakistan and India over an attack in the disputed Kashmir region. His visit was followed by another by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to Iran, where he had met Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
This would be Pezeshkian’s first official visit to Pakistan as the Iranian president, according to the Pakistani foreign office. He will be accompanied by a high-level delegation, including FM Araghchi, senior ministers and other high-ranking officials.
“During his stay, President Pezeshkian will meet with the President of Pakistan, H.E. Asif Ali Zardari, and hold delegation-level talks with Prime Minister of Pakistan, H.E. Shehbaz Sharif,” the foreign office said.
Despite several agreements between them, tensions surged between Pakistan and Iran in January last year when both countries exchanged rare, tit-for-tat airstrikes on what they said were militant hideouts on each other’s soil.
Late Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi had later traveled to Pakistan on a three-day visit in April to de-escalate tensions and strengthen bilateral relations. The two sides had also signed memorandums of understanding in the fields of trade, science technology, agriculture, health, culture, and judicial matters.
The ties, which initially witnessed a thaw during FM Araghchi’s visit to Pakistan, further warmed up after Islamabad voiced its support of Tehran during the 12-day Israel-Iran war that began after Israeli strikes on Iranian nuclear sites.
Pakistan remained engaged in talks with regional partners like Ƶ, Iran, China and Qatar to de-escalate tensions in the Middle East after Iran conducted retaliatory strikes on Israel and a US base in Qatar, raising fears the conflict could draw in other regional states.
“The visit [by Iranian president] is expected to further strengthen the brotherly relations between Pakistan and Iran,” the Pakistani foreign office said.
Oil Updates — crude steadies as concerns about tariff impacts vie with Russian supply threats
Updated 55 min 45 sec ago
Reuters
HOUSTON: Oil prices were little changed on Friday after falling more than 1 percent in the previous session as traders digested the impact of higher US tariffs that may curtail economic activity and lower global fuel demand growth.
Brent crude futures were down 7 cents, or 0.1 percent, to $71.63 a barrel at 9:56 a.m. Saudi time. US West Texas Intermediate crude was down 10 cents, or 0.14 percent, to $69.16 a barrel.
Still, Brent prices are set to gain 4.9 percent for the week while WTI is set to climb 6.4 percent after US President Donald Trump earlier this week threatened to place tariffs on buyers of Russian crude, particularly China and India, to try to pressure Russia into halting its war against Ukraine.
“We think the resolution of trade deals to the satisfaction of the market – more or less, barring a few exceptions – has been the key driver for oil price bullishness in recent days, and further progress on trade talks with China in future could be a further confidence booster for the oil market,” said Suvro Sarkar, energy sector team lead at DBS bank.
On Friday though, investors were more focused on Trump’s imposition of new, and mostly higher, tariff rates on US trading partners set to go into effect from August 1.
Trump signed an executive order on Thursday imposing tariffs ranging from 10 percent to 41 percent on US imports from dozens of countries and foreign territories including Canada, India and Taiwan that failed to reach trade deals by his deadline of August 1.
Some analysts have warned the levies will limit economic growth by raising prices, which could weigh on oil consumption.
On Thursday, there were signs that existing tariffs are already pushing prices higher in the US, the world’s biggest economy and oil consumer.
US inflation increased in June as tariffs boosted prices for imported goods such as household furniture and recreation products. This is supporting views that price pressures could pick up in the second half of the year and delay Federal Reserve interest rate cuts until at least October.
Maintaining interest rates could also impact oil as higher borrowing costs can limit economic growth.
At the same time, Trump’s threats to impose 100 percent secondary tariffs on Russian crude buyers have supported prices because of concerns that would disrupt oil trade flows and remove some oil from the market.
DBS’ Sarkar said that India’s slowing of Russian imports may lead to some supply curtailment, but that that would be mostly negated by Chevron resuming oil production in Venezuela, record US production, and growing US supply.
JP Morgan analysts said in a note on Thursday that Trump’s warnings to China and India of penalties on their ongoing purchases of Russian oil potentially put 2.75 million barrels per day of Russian seaborne oil exports at risk. The two countries are the world’s second- and third-largest crude consumers, respectively.
“The Trump administration, like its predecessors, will likely find sanctioning the world’s second-largest oil exporter unfeasible without spiking oil prices,” the analysts said, referring to Russia.
