Daily News Digest: Trump Doubles Tariffs on Canadian Steel and Aluminum

March 12, 2025 -- Today’s top stories: Trump Doubles Tariffs on Canada, Manus AI Partners with Alibaba, and China Launches First Heterogeneous Humanoid Robot Training Facility.

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By CommonWealth Magazine
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2025-03-12

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Trump Doubles Tariffs on Canadian Steel and Aluminum to 50% then Backs Off

Us President Donald Trump has said he will double his planned tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum from 25% to 50%. However, Trump reversed course on Tuesday afternoon, just hours after announcing the higher tariffs, in rapid-fire moves that scrambled financial markets. The switch came after a Canadian official also backed off his own plans for a 25% surcharge on electricity.

The increase is a response to price rises the provincial government of Ontario put on electricity sold to the US. In a post on his social media platform truth social he said: "I have instructed my Secretary of Commerce to add an additional 25% tariff, to 50%, on all steel and aluminum coming into the United States from Canada, one of the highest tariffing nations anywhere in the world." On Monday, Ontario announced it would charge 25% more for electricity to 1.5 million American homes and businesses.

The leader of Canada’s most populous province, Ontario Premier Doug Ford, ordered the independent electricity system operator, which oversees the province’s electricity market, to implement a $7-Per-Megawatt-Per-Hour fee on all power exports to the three US border States.

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China's Manus AI Announces Partnership with Alibaba's Qwen Team

(Source: Shutterstock)

Chinese artificial intelligence start-up Manus AI has announced a strategic partnership with the team behind Alibaba's Qwen AI models.

The two sides will collaborate based on Qwen's open-source AI models and aim to implement all of Manus' functionalities on China's domestic models and computing platforms.

Manus AI has been working quietly for the past year on its AI digital assistant Manus, Co-Founder Yichao "peak" Ji said in a launch Video posted on Youtube.

"We see it as the next paradigm of Human-Machine collaboration, and potentially a glimpse into AGI," he said, referencing general artificial intelligence that aims to think the way humans do.

Manus launched in an invitation-only phase last week, with tickets tough to come by.

The company called it "the first general AI agent" that autonomously executes complex tasks.

However, it has already drawn criticism from experts who warn about data privacy.

Tech companies are battling it out to develop AI agents, which do not have a specific definition but can generally be explained as having some degree of autonomy, meaning they can perform tasks such as screening resumes, creating trip Itineraries and analyzing stocks in response to basic instructions from the user.

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Shanghai Electric Supports the Launch of China’s First Heterogeneous Humanoid Robot Training Facility

(Photo: Chien-Ying Chiu)

Shanghai Electric, along with nine other leading research enterprises, has signed an operational cooperation agreement with Shanghai-based national and local Co-Built Humanoid Robotics Innovation Center to establish China's first heterogeneous Humanoid robot training ground, the Humanoid robot Kylin training ground.

The launch of this groundbreaking facility marks a new chapter in the evolution of the Humanoid robotics industry in China.

The training ground is presently capable of housing over 100 Humanoid robots, positioning it as the largest of its kind nationwide.

The company aims to expand this capacity significantly, targeting the concurrent training of 1,000 general-purpose robots by 2027.

This initiative will encompass training programs across more than ten industries, including equipment manufacturing, automotive production, and home appliances. Through continuous training, Humanoid robots will accumulate extensive industrial scenario data, laying a solid foundation for the development of more precise large-scale robot models and driving their widespread adoption and further advancement across multiple sectors.

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