Michael Race
Senior economics and business reporter

The price of gold has hit an all-time high again as investors have flocked to buy up the precious metal due to economic uncertainty and the turmoil on global financial markets this week.

Bullion prices rose to more than $3,200 (£2,439) an ounce on Friday as the trade war between the US and China intensified.

But why is gold deemed such a safe-haven for people to put their money into?

Gold's safe-haven status is a result of its intrinsic value and historical significance, according to the maker of UK coins, the Royal Mint.

"Investors turn to gold for stability, a timeless resource they can rely on," it says. "Unlike paper currencies, which can lose value due to inflation or economic turmoil, gold’s intrinsic worth endures," it says.

Gold has been valuable to mankind for centuries. It's a scarce metal, but not completely rare. It has a relatively low melting point and so can easily be made into coins or jewellery.

While silver tarnishes over time, gold doesn't.

As Tony Hadley sang the Spandau Ballet classic: "You're indestructible."

He was "always believing", in gold - investors continue to do so as well.

China is digging in to ride out the tariff warpublished at 13:49 British Summer Time 11 April

13:49 BST 11 April

Stephen McDonell
China correspondent, reporting from Beijing

Analysts are saying the tariff increases between China and the US are now becoming almost meaningless.

That’s because the levies on each other’s imports are so high that they already impede much of the trade flowing between the two.

Chinese President Xi Jinping’s diary is filled with meetings with other nations as Beijing looks to forge new trade routes and shore up opposition to Donald Trump’s tariffs.

Today, he has been meeting Spain’s prime minister and calling on the EU to combine with China to “jointly resist the unilateral bullying practices” of the Trump administration.

Next week, he will visit Vietnam, Cambodia, and Malaysia - all countries currently marked for devastating tariffs from the US after the 90-day pause on them is over.

Image source, Reuters

Beijing is digging in because it knows it can - it has options and doesn’t need to rely only on trade with the US.

When it comes to Chinese consumers they can easily switch to local brands if imported American products are too expensive.

Chinese companies with specific links to trade with the US are hurting the most, but for everybody else, the tariffs are more of an inconvenience.

China has considerable ability to ride this tariff war out and we could see it digging in for as long as it takes.

Tommy Lumby
BBC business data journalist

Image source, Getty Images

We’ve been trawling through the numbers to get a sense of quite how much US President Donald Trump’s tariffs have hit markets over the last several days.

The Hang Seng Index, which tracks the value of shares on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, dropped 8.5% in the week to Friday.

That was the steepest weekly fall since February 2018 and came despite gains on Thursday and Friday.

The Tokyo-based Nikkei index closed 9.0% down on the week last Friday – the biggest loss since the onset of the Covid pandemic – and posted a more modest decline of 0.6% this week, after several days of highs and lows.

Shanghai’s SSE Index also closed 3.1% lower on the week this Friday, although the index has seen larger contractions this year.

Image source, Reuters

The US needs to "diversify" from China and source trade from other countries, US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer says.

Speaking to Fox News, he says it's "dangerous" if America can only sustain its standard of living by relying on Chinese imports.

Trump announced this week a pause for 90 days for countries hit by higher US tariffs.

Greer says for that period he has "hundreds" of people "working around the clock" with countries, looking at what trade they can do with the US.

He adds that his people are giving ideas and communicating so that eventually Trump can consider deals.

Greer says he thinks he can get enough deals to the US president that he feels "comfortable" they are "pushing trade forward".

David Waddell
Business reporter

Image source, Getty Images

There is no rest for governments or businesses trying to chart a path through the choppy waters of global trade.

Despite a 90-day pause in enhanced tariffs on many countries, the remaining tariffs are real and impactful. But the uncertainty brings its own perils.

Ben Farrell is the CEO of the Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply.

He tells BBC Business Today that the current environment is “a tale of compound disruption”, creating a “state of perpetual uncertainty and a continual necessity to re-plan”.

French President Emmanuel Macron has posted on X to say that the tariff pause “remains fragile” and notes that “the 25% duties on steel, aluminium and automobiles, as well as the 10% tariffs on other products, are still in place. They amount to €52bn (£45bn) in duties on the European Union”.

He goes on to note that the 90-day pause in tariffs “means 90 days of uncertainty for our businesses, on both sides of the Atlantic and beyond”.

It is not just the tariffs that are costly, but the threat of tariffs too. That throttles confidence and investment. The tumultuous messaging from the White House demonstrates this threat almost daily.

Business, governments and even consumers around the world cannot ignore the unpredictable nature of US trade policy.

Image source, Reuters

French Prime Minister François Bayrou says it is a "terribly dangerous" idea to think that China can replace the US as a trade partner.

He also urges European Union members to stick together in the face of uncertainty from Trump's tariffs.

"When the president of the United States raises tariffs, it is an earthquake, but when the president of the United States 48 hours later drops tariffs, it is another earthquake," he says.

It's the latest comment from France on the tariffs, with French President Emmanuel Macron earlier saying the partial suspension of them for 90 days was an "open door" to negotiations with America.

The boss of one of the world's biggest banks says the US economy is facing "considerable turbulence".

In a statement, Jamie Dimon, who is the chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, warns of the "potential negatives of tariffs and trade wars" but adds that his firm is prepared for a "wide range of scenarios".

Despite this, he says JPMorgan has reported "strong underlying business and financial results in the first quarter".

Dimon adds that “our fortress balance sheet enables the firm to be a pillar of strength, particularly during volatile or challenging times".

It has been over a week now since US President Donald Trump announced widespread import tariffs on many of the world’s economies.

Here are the latest developments to bring you up-to-date:

• China has announced it will raise its tariffs on US goods to 125% from tomorrow, after Trump increased Washington’s levies on China to 145%. Beijing has said it "will not respond" to additional US tariffs
• Washington's tariffs are a “numbers game” that will “become a joke”, a Beijing commerce ministry spokesperson later said

• Despite escalating the US's tariffs on China, Trump has said he is still hopeful of striking a deal with Beijing that will be beneficial for both countries
• However, China's President Xi Jinping has called on the European Union to join China in opposing "bullying" from the US, saying "there are no winners in a tariff war"
• Shortly after China’s latest announcement on increasing tariffs for US goods, Europe's three main indexes entered the red - many Asian markets are also down
• While all that has been going on, EU finance ministers have been meeting in Warsaw, Poland, to discuss how to respond to US tariffs if negotiations fail
• This comes ahead of European Trade Commissioner Maros Sefcovic’s visit to Washington over the weekend, where he intends "to try and sign deals”, according to a spokesperson

Azadeh Moshiri
Pakistan Correspondent

Image source, Bloomberg via Getty Images

A Pakistani delegation is going to Washington in the next few weeks after the “uncertainty” caused by the new tariffs imposed by the United States.

There’s a lot riding on the trip. The US is Pakistan’s biggest customer for exports, and the threat of a 29% tariff would be a major blow to an already fragile economy.

Pakistan's Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb says his country has experienced “a number of ups and downs in the last few days”.

Pakistan is banking on using its critical minerals as leverage and the US State Department has said a deal is something they want to explore.

But Pakistan will face one big stumbling block in Washington: its relationship with China.

The two countries are engaged in a multi-billion dollar project in the province of Balochistan. As a US-China trade war looms, Pakistan could get caught in the crossfire.

Image source, Getty Images

Ireland's Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe has addressed "change happening within the world economy" at a meeting of European Union finance ministers in Poland's capital, Warsaw.

He says ministers are in broad agreement on fundamental principles, including the need for a unified stance and approach, and an "appropriate policy mix" to protect the EU and the euro.

"We're clear on where we stand within Europe; we remain united to a rules-based way of trading with each other," he says.

Donohoe adds that "we remain united in accelerating the progress that we have made on our greatest strength - a single market and the way we economically co-operate with each other".

Michael Race
Senior economics and business reporter

I would imagine traders on the floors of stock exchanges have had little time to enjoy the spring sunshine during a lunch break this week.

It's a bit of a mixed picture across Europe at the moment.

• The UK's FTSE 100 is up marginally 0.88%. It started the day up, fell following the news of China's retaliation to the latest US tariffs, and has since rebounded somewhat
• France's Cac 40 meanwhile is broadly flat at the moment, but has rebounded from the red as well
• The Dax in Germany is also trending up, but remains 0.52% down

Jennifer Meierhans
Senior economics and business reporter

The value of the US dollar has fallen in recent days to a new three-year low following the uncertainty over the impact of Trump tariffs on the global economy.

The graph below charts the value of the dollar against a basket of other major currencies. It shows a steep decline in recent days, today falling to 99.5, the lowest point for around three years.

Economists attribute this to markets losing confidence in the dollar as the world's benchmark currency.

George Saravelos at Deutsche Bank said: "We argued yesterday night that despite President Trump's reversal on tariffs the damage to the USD has been done, external. The market is re-assessing the structural attractiveness of the dollar as the world's global reserve currency and is undergoing a process of rapid de-dollarization, external.

"Nowhere is this more evident than the continued and combined collapse in the currency and US bond market as this week comes to a close."

Image source, Reuters

Economic volatility sparked by tariffs imposed by US President Donald Trump could have a "catastrophic" impact on developing countries, according to the United Nations trade agency.

"It is huge," says Pamela Coke-Hamilton, executive director of the International Trade Centre (ITC).

"Tariffs could have a much more harmful impact than the removal of foreign aid," she tells the Reuters news agency.

"If this escalation between China and the US continues it will result in an 80% reduction in trade between the countries, and the ripple effect of that across the board can be catastrophic."

Coke-Hamilton says developing economies risk sliding back on the economic gains they made in recent years.

Image source, Getty Images

European trade commissioner Maros Sefcovic is travelling to Washington over the weekend "to try and sign deals," a spokesperson says.

"The trade commissioner is going to Washington to try and sign deals. That is what we are focused on. All options are on the table should that not lead to a good outcome," spokesperson Olof Gill told Ireland's RTE radio this morning.

Earlier this week, Sefcovic postponed a scheduled visit to Vietnam due to “the latest international developments,” the EU said.

China's mission to the World Trade Organization (WTO) says it has filed an additional complaint to the agency over the tariffs imposed by Washington, according to the Reuters news agency.

It filed a complaint to the trade body in February , externalshortly after US President Donald Trump raised border taxes on Chinese goods by 10%.

China then lodged another dispute to the WTO last week over tariffs., external

Countries facing high tariffs from the US could take them to the WTO’s dispute settlement court.

During Trump's first term as president, America started blocking the appointment of judges to the appeals body that rules on disputes, arguing it had overreached its role.

As a result, the body cannot currently function, external and there's little the WTO can do about any breaches of its rules.

Why Beijing is not backing down to President Trumppublished at 10:53 British Summer Time 11 April

10:53 BST 11 April

Stephen McDonell
China correspondent in Beijing

In response to why Beijing is not backing down to Donald Trump, the answer is that it doesn’t have to.

China’s leaders would say that they are not inclined to cave in to a bully – something the government here has repeatedly labelled the Trump Administration as – but also it has a capacity to do this way beyond any other country on earth.

Before the tariff war kicked in, China did have a massive volume of sales to America but, to put it into context, this only amounted to 2% of its GDP.

The government has told its people that it is in a strong position to resist the attacks from the US and, after all, its own tariffs are clearly going to hurt American exporters as well.

Donald Trump has been bragging to his supporters that it would be easy to force China into submission by simply hitting the country with tariffs, but this has proven to be misleading in the extreme.

Beijing is not going to surrender.

Image source, Reuters

Newscast attempts to answer your questions about Donald Trump and the worldwide impact of his tariffs in this latest edition of the podcast.

James and Alex are joined by BBC News chief presenter Caitriona Perry and deputy economics editor Dharshini David to relive the week that was.

Plus, how could tariffs effect UK consumers and when will people start to feel it in their pocket?

Listen to Newscast on BBC Sounds.

Jamie Whitehead
Live page editor

Another day, another escalation in the US-China trade war.

In the last hour or so, Beijing announced a 125% tax on goods being imported to the country from the US, which will take effect on Saturday.

Beijing's actions follow the pattern which has emerged over the last week or so with it matching whatever tariff the US imposed on it.

Despite China's commerce ministry calling the US tariffs a "numbers game with no practical significance", and that it will "become a joke," Beijing has said it will not respond to any further US tariffs.

Will there be any more?

Maybe.

Yesterday the White House said some products entering the US could be subject to 145% tariffs, this is due to an already existing 20% levy on companies who produce the drug fentanyl.

Before China's announcement earlier, European stock markets opened with a cautious optimism. However, there's been a downtick since.

It's just gone 05:00 on America's east coast, so we haven't yet heard what President Trump makes of President Xi's latest move, but stick with us throughout the day and we'll bring you all the latest lines.

Michael Race
Senior economics and business reporter

Following the announcement from Beijing that it will retaliate further to US tariffs, with a levy of 125% on US goods being imported to the country from tomorrow, European stock markets have entered the red.

After being marginally up in early trading, all three main stock indexes are now down.

• In the UK, the FTSE 100 is down 0.47%
• France's Cac 40 is down 0.92%
• Germany's Dax is down 1.53%

Falling markets is a sign that investors think that most companies are likely to see their profits fall.

This is because they believe the tariffs imposed by both the US and China will lower demand for goods and push up prices.

Chinese shoppers have been encouraged to buy local brands and Beijing remains undeterred as the fallout over US tariffs continues, the BBC's Stephen McDonell says.

He took a stroll on the streets of Beijing to get a sense of how the tariffs are affecting locals.