Steel Tariffs

Hi ZipLawyer! You know when you start saying a word over and over and it loses its meaning? I’m having that feeling with “Tariffs”.

Today’s Memo:

🇺🇸 Steel Tariffs
🙅 Elon gets rejected
🇫🇷 France invests in AI
⚖️ Mishcon, Fieldfisher lead on stake dispute
💸 Clifford Chance, Debevoise lead on insurance deal
🙋 What is EBITDA?

Steel Tariffs

It’s Tariff News time (again!).

Trump is slapping a 25% tax on steel and aluminum imports in a move to protect U.S. industry—but at the cost of aggravating key allies. Canada and Mexico, two of America’s biggest suppliers, aren’t spared this time, and the tariffs will also hit finished metal products to stop what officials call "loophole abuse" by exporters like China and Russia. The tariffs will kick in on 12 March and the only country Trump hinted could get a break is Australia because it buys U.S.-made aircraft.

• Allies are fuming: Canada called the move “totally unjustified”, while China already hit back with new retaliatory tariffs on U.S. goods.
• The aerospace, auto, and energy sectors rely on specialty metals imports, and higher costs could fuel inflation—the very thing Trump vowed to fight.

Unfortunately there’s more Tariff news heading your way. Trump’s threatening reciprocal tariffs on nations that tax U.S. goods, with cars and semiconductors next in line. The EU also promised it would respond to any tariffs Trump decides to impose on the bloc.

No Thank You

What would you do if Elon offered you $100mn? Sam Altman would say no thank you. Elon Musk, with backing from Ari Emanuel and Joe Lonsdale, has lobbed a $97.4 billion bid to buy OpenAI—but Sam Altman isn’t selling. Musk’s pitch? Bring OpenAI back to its roots as an open-source, safety-first AI lab, rather than the corporate AI giant it has become. The offer is the latest twist in Musk and Altman’s long-running feud, dating back to OpenAI’s shift from non-profit to for-profit—a move Musk has loudly criticized.

AI-lez les Bleu

Emmanuel Macron is going all-in on AI, unveiling a €109 billion investment plan to supercharge France’s tech ambitions. The funding is coming from the UAE, North American investors, and French heavyweights like Iliad, Orange, and Thales. The UAE alone is pledging €30-50B for a massive data center campus, while Brookfield Asset Management is throwing in €20B over five years. Meanwhile, Mistral AI is gearing up for a billion-euro data center near Paris. Macron compared these investments to Trump’s $500B Stargate AI initiative, warning that Europe must "invest, invest, invest" or risk falling behind in the AI arms race.

Mishcon, Fieldfisher lead on stake dispute