BRUSSELS — The European Union’s anti-deforestation law will put United States producers off exporting to the European market, harming EU competitiveness, a senior official with the U.S. Department of Agriculture told reporters in Brussels Friday. The law, also called EUDR, is “going to discourage us from looking at the European market” and from “paying attention to any European rules [linked to deforestation],” the official said. The law as it stands would affect $9 billion of U.S. trade to the EU annually, added the official, who spoke to journalists on condition that he was not named. A delegation of U.S. government representatives is finishing a tour of EU capitals — including Madrid, Rome, Paris, Berlin and Brussels — to lobby governments to simplify the EUDR ahead of an upcoming review of the rules next month. One example of a sector that could be affected is livestock farming, the official said, arguing these farmers depend on soybeans to feed their animals, and Europe does not produce enough protein feed. “It needs to import from countries that are better at it, like us,” he said, warning that the U.S. stopping that export “will drive up their costs, hurt their competitiveness.” The EU’s anti-deforestation law requires that companies police their supply chains to ensure that any commodities they use, such as palm oil, beef or coffee, have not contributed to deforestation. After complaints from industry groups and trade partners, EU institutions in December agreed to put off implementation of the law by a year — until Dec. 2026 — and mandated the Commission to present a review of the rules by April. “It’s particularly difficult for us because these [compliance] costs will be borne by our producers,” said the official. U.S. farmers also don’t want to share information on their farms with foreign governments, he said. Washington’s main qualms with the law include the fact that there’s no category of “negligible” risk in the EU’s ranking of countries by risk of deforestation. The U.S. — like all EU member countries as well as China, Canada, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ghana, Kenya, Vietnam and others — has been labeled “low risk” under the EU’s deforestation classification system. Members of the European Parliament in the center-right European People’s Party have also backed the introduction of a “no risk” category, “for countries with stable or expanding forest areas.” The senior official also complained about a stipulation in the law that if the level of deforestation in any country exceeds 70,000 hectares annually, that country cannot be considered “low risk.” That standard “just doesn’t work for us,” they said. “It’s not fair.” Representatives from the European Commission are meeting with members of the delegation on Friday “at technical level” to discuss the law, a spokesperson for the European Commission confirmed to POLITICO. European Environment Commissioner Jessika Roswall told reporters in January that there would be no new legislative proposal come April, saying businesses need “predictability.” A 2024 report from the U.S. Congressional Research Service estimated that, in 2023, U.S. exports of the seven commodities under the EUDR accounted for approximately 3 percent of the value of U.S. exports to the EU, “so overall the EUDR may not significantly affect U.S. trade.” European Environment Commissioner Jessika Roswall told reporters in January that there would be no new legislative proposal come April, saying businesses need “predictability.” | Gabriel Luengas/Europa Press via Getty Images Still, the authors wrote, the law could affect U.S. producers of specific commodities covered by the law. In 2023, the highest value of covered commodities exported to the EU from the U.S. were wood and wood products ($4.5 billion), soybeans ($4 billion), rubber ($1.1 billion), and cattle, such as beef and related products ($409 million). Environmental groups are calling on EU governments and the Commission to stick by the EUDR and keep the rules intact. “Misleading and self-serving foreign pressure on the EU should not distract policy-makers from staying focused on facts,” said Anke Schulmeister-Oldenhove, manager for forests at WWF EU, in an emailed statement. “Every year the EUDR is postponed results in the loss of nearly 50 million trees and the release of 16.8 million tonnes of CO₂ into the atmosphere.”

LONDON — Keir Starmer’s ill-fated decision to pick Peter Mandelson as Britain’s ambassador to the U.S. — despite known links to Jeffrey Epstein — has thrown his government into turmoil. And it’s prompting intense scrutiny of a system designed to stop precisely that outcome. As the U.K. prime minister faces continued blowback for appointing Mandelson to the diplomatic post, POLITICO spoke to seven national security experts, current and former officials and MPs familiar with the security vetting system that governs sensitive roles. They say the Mandelson case — in which the veteran politician was given the job despite his ties to late convicted sex offender Epstein — highlights a slew of long-running problems with a set-up meant to ensure candidates for key posts are free from the kind of risks that have now blown up in Starmer’s face. In reality, they say, the process suffers from political pressure, a lack of robust due diligence, a reliance on trust, and stretched resources. Some were granted anonymity to speak candidly about this sensitive issue.  A security official who has undergone the same process as Mandelson — known as Developed Vetting (DV) — said: “If the process was done properly — and he still passed — then everyone who has been through DV needs re-vetting. Because, if Mandelson can pass, anyone can.” For his part, Mandelson — who did not respond to a request for comment for this piece — has said he “deeply regrets” his continued association with Epstein and the “lies” that the “monster” told him. He has said none of the Epstein emails released by the U.S. Department of Justice “indicate wrongdoing or misdemeanor on my part.” He has apologized “unequivocally” for his association with Epstein and “to the women and girls that suffered.” A QUESTION OF TIMING A full DV check is supposed to be a grueling affair, gatekeeping the most senior and sensitive Whitehall jobs. Candidates must actively declare any potential security risks they are aware of. They are routinely subjected to a deeply-personal interview on every aspect of their life, including those which could potentially make them a blackmail target.  Self-declaration forms are filled in, candidates are interviewed, and referees are quizzed to cross-examine the information provided. DV covers everything from a candidate’s foreign travel to their pornography habits. It presses them on any drug taking or affairs, and can probe their entire financial history. Criminal records must be declared and are scrutinized. “The process requires a vast amount of information, including a full travel history, where you’ve been and with whom, and any foreign associates,” the security official quoted at the beginning of this piece said. “It’s intrusive by design. Any normal person would feel uncomfortable, let alone someone with a history.” DV is carried out by United Kingdom Security Vetting (UKSV), a body in the Cabinet Office. The questions it asks and the information it collects are confidential and shared only with UKSV and the Foreign Office’s own security team. The prime minister does not have access to its findings. A full DV check is supposed to be a grueling affair, gatekeeping the most senior and sensitive Whitehall jobs. | Vuk Valcic/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images But Mandelson’s appointment has raised questions over both the sequencing and scope of this vetting. The pick for the U.S. ambassador job was announced to much fanfare in December 2024 — before DV had taken place.  Ahead of the announcement, No.10 Downing Street instead asked the Cabinet Office’s internal Proprietary and Ethics Team (PET) to run a more limited “due diligence” check on the ambassadorial choice, alongside five other candidates then under consideration by the government.  The vast majority of the information the Cabinet Office relied on for the exercise was in the public domain. A summary was then handed to Downing Street, who proceeded with the appointment, after No.10 chief of staff Morgan McSweeney emailed three further questions to Mandelson on his relationship with Epstein. Only then did developed vetting begin. Matthew Savill had a long career working in Whitehall and vetting before joining the RUSI security think tank — and is among those raising alarm bells about the sequencing of this process in Mandelson’s case.  “There is a huge question over how Mandelson was appointed and publicly announced before vetting,” he said. “There is no way that that doesn’t slightly tip the balance towards acceptance. If you’re going to hold up the appointment or deny them the clearance, it becomes an issue.”  At the time Mandelson was announced for the job, the fact of his association with Epstein was public knowledge — although the full extent of his longer-term ties to the disgraced financier had yet to be made public in the U.S. Department of Justice’s release of the Epstein Files. “None of us knew the depths and the darkness of that relationship,” Starmer said earlier this month in a speech apologizing to Epstein’s victims for appointing Mandelson. The pick for the U.S. ambassador job was announced to much fanfare in December 2024 — before DV had taken place. | Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images Emily Thornberry, chair of the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, grilled Foreign Office boss Olly Robbins about the process last November, weeks after Mandelson had been fired as ambassador over the publication of correspondence between him and Epstein.  Robbins acknowledged that Mandelson — a veteran Labour politician who had held multiple government posts under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown — had “jumped the queue” for vetting, with a process done “faster than some people’s clearances will have been.” But he said: “That was not because the process was different; it was because we advanced him up the queue.” Robbins — who was Mandelson’s line manager — told the committee that he had a conversation with Mandelson about his “conflicts of interests” during the process, and the contents of that “needs to be between us.” Thornberry remains unconvinced that enough time was granted to allow full developed vetting to take place — and fears political timescales were at play. “It all had to be sorted out and tickety-boo by the swearing in with the president [Trump] at the beginning of January,” she tells POLITICO. “So there was very little time — and there was Christmas in between. Normally, as I understand it, DV takes months. Keir Starmer’s ill-fated decision to pick Peter Mandelson as Britain’s ambassador to the U.S. has thrown his government into turmoil. | Zeynep Demir/Anadolu via Getty Images “What we did get out of our inquiry was that he wasn’t given a panel interview the way that a non-political appointee would do, and so therefore any questions asked of him seem to have been done pretty informally by [Starmer’s then-Chief of Staff] Morgan McSweeney — which is pretty low-level accountability.” The Cabinet Office declined to comment on the record for this piece. TOOLS FOR THE JOB Others are questioning whether the DV process is robust enough to account for a candidate who may give misleading answers.  Starmer has accused Mandelson of lying to him “repeatedly” about the extent of his ties to Epstein — and that, say those familiar with the vetting process, shows one of its fundamental weaknesses: a reliance on trust over hard information. One former government special advisor who has been through DV said that the interview they faced was “like going to the GP and they ask how many units [of alcohol per week] you have. Nobody fully tells the truth, and I guess they can only go by what you provide them with, unless they can get good data.” In contrast with some U.S. counterparts, British officials remain wary of leaning on polygraph tests to weigh the veracity of answers given in interviews. Instead, the DV process relies on the strength of the intelligence that feeds into it — and the honesty of the person subject to the checks. “There is no lie detector — which the U.K. has been pretty skeptical about in comparison to the U.S. which uses them a lot. If you lie and there’s something that only you know about, which your references don’t, then you might get through vetting,” Savill said. There is only a limited role in the process for Britain’s Intelligence agencies, MI5 and MI6.  There is only a limited role in the process for Britain’s Intelligence agencies, MI5 and MI6. | Mike Kemp/In Pictures Ltd./Corbis via Getty Images Savill said there are two places where spooks might feed into vetting: a “box check,” in which UKSV runs a candidate and their family’s details against security service records, “to see if they turn up in some capacity;” and during the due diligence check by the Proprietary and Ethics Team (PET) in the Cabinet Office. “This is a point at which you might consult the agencies in the background,” Savill said. Political party whips can also feed into this process.  But, he warned, “questions around political figures that have national security implications are radioactive in the intelligence community.” Britain’s Wilson Doctrine — the convention that MPs’ and Lords’ communications should not be intercepted by the intelligence services — continues to place “pretty significant constraints on how intelligence and politics interact.” PET did not consult the security services during its due diligence process for Mandelson. The Cabinet Office declined to comment on security matters relating to Mandelson’s appointment or any engagement with the intelligence community. There is also some consternation among security experts that Mandelson’s known Russian connections were not viewed as a sufficient risk to stop his clearance. The former Labour politician had a long-standing relationship with Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska. “I know people who haven’t even gotten their parliamentary clearance because they’ve travelled to Russia once for work, or they’ve had a parent who’s been born in that region but has no links there whatsoever,” the former special advisor quoted above said. “That’s the level of paranoia there is, and about Russia in particular.” Carve-outs for areas of acute sensitivity are possible under the vetting process. Mandelson’s clearance would likely have seen him inducted into STRAP, a high-level, U.K. security clearance allowing access to top-level intelligence material. Obtaining this clearance involves looking at the foreign exposure of an individual — and can result in a subject being denied access to certain pieces of intelligence if deemed a risk. The former Labour politician had a long-standing relationship with Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska. | Getty Images Savill noted that given that the U.S.-U.K. relationship is “so key,” its ambassador is expected to have access to a vast swathe of intelligence and “it would be really difficult to do his job without this.” ‘FAILED TO GET A GRIP’ UKSV itself continues to feel political heat over its performance — and major questions about the resourcing of DV checks persist.  Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee reported in 2023 that ministers had repeatedly complained to UKSV over delays in granting clearances. “The Cabinet Office has failed to get a grip of vetting services since it took over responsibility in 2020,” the watchdog said. “It has not assessed the impact across government that delays to vetting can have when staff are unable to progress work because they do not have the appropriate level of security clearance.” Savill argues that “national security vetting has largely been a car crash for the past decade.” He cites a combination of short-staffing, botched IT upgrades and a lack of capacity for what can be expensive and intrusive work into people’s backgrounds. “It raises the question if DV is fit for the modern era for people who are attempting to evade scrutiny,” Savill added.   At the same time, Savill said there can be quite “a high bar to get over when denying a DV” clearance to a candidate, which leads to emphasis on what’s known as “aftercare” — regular checks on a person’s circumstances to keep an eye on issues identified during vetting. “There has been criticism that DV lets a lot of people through the gate and then it puts a lot of emphasis on checking up on them afterwards,” he said. “The problem is the presumption is towards giving a DV — it is a bit like a trial, the presumption is towards innocence.” SHAKE-UP STARTS Earlier this month, the British government folded to political pressure and agreed to release vast swathes of internal documentation relating to Mandelson’s appointment — but the work to overhaul vetting is only just beginning. Emily Thornberry, chair of the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, grilled Foreign Office boss Olly Robbins about the process last November, weeks after Mandelson had been fired as ambassador. | Nicola Tree/Getty Images Starmer’s administration has promised to publish Mandelson’s due diligence report, a conflict of interest form he had to fill out, and information provided to UKSV by the Foreign Office. But it is unlikely that the information contained in Mandelson’s DV process will ever see the light of day. Further documents deemed to be “prejudicial to U.K. national security or international relations” will be referred to Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC), while an ongoing police investigation into misconduct in public office allegations against Mandelson — who appears to have forwarded on government policy advice to Epstein while serving in Gordon Brown’s government — leaves some elements in limbo. Officers have not yet interviewed Mandelson and he has denied wrongdoing. In a bid to get back on the front foot after days of damaging headlines, the government has signaled that it’s open to a shake-up of vetting. Morgan McSweeney — Starmer’s chief of staff, who was forced to resign over the scandal — called for the process to be “fundamentally overhauled” in his parting statement.  Darren Jones, the minister who leads the Cabinet Office, vowed last week that the government would tighten the process for appointments like Mandelson’s. It will, Jones said, include assurances that “where the role requires access to highly classified material, the selected candidate must have passed through the requisite national security vetting process before such appointments are announced or confirmed.” “This cannot simply be a gesture but a safeguard for the future,” he said. In the meantime, the questions about this particular appointment — and how seriously the vetting process was taken by the politicians calling the shots — continue to mount. “What is extraordinary is that I cannot see how a vetting team could have given him a positive outcome of that process,” a former senior British security official said of Mandelson’s appointment:   “Whatever Starmer and [former No.10 chief of staff Morgan] McSweeney think of him and his abilities — that’s not the issue. The issue is whether you lack integrity and/or are a security risk.”

LONDON — Keir Starmer has been throwing a little shade at fellow world leaders. The British prime minister ditched his buttoned-up public persona on Monday evening to poke fun at France’s Emmanuel Macron during a live recording of comedian Matt Forde’s podcast. Handed a pair of aviator sunglasses, similar to those worn by the French president during the World Economic Forum in Davos last week due to an eye health issue, Starmer put them on and jibed to audience laughter: “Bonjour.” The clip was posted on the PM’s TikTok feed with a message to Macron saying: “Talk to me, Goose” — a reference to the 1986 Tom Cruise film “Top Gun.” > @keirstarmer @Emmanuel Macron ♬ original sound – Keir Starmer Starmer told Forde that while he will consider wearing the specs to international summits, he will need his normal glasses back to be able to see in parliament. It’s not the first time Macron’s shades have raised eyebrows. “I watched him yesterday with those beautiful sunglasses. What the hell happened?” Donald Trump remarked during a speech at Davos. Starmer also disclosed that Trump regularly rings him on his mobile phone, rather than using official government communications. “Once I was in the flat with the kids cleaning pasta off the table after their dinner, and the phone goes and it’s Donald on the phone,” Starmer said. “Another time, I’d say most inconvenient, we’re halfway through the Arsenal-PSG game,” he added, referencing his love of the top-flight soccer team. In a more serious moment, Starmer defended his decision to travel to China this week, in the first trip to the country by a British prime minister since 2018. “If you’re a leader on the international stage, you are dealing with whoever is the leader in another country. I mean, it’s that simple,” he said.  

BRUSSELS — Meta’s WhatsApp will face fresh scrutiny from Brussels after the EU decided the service falls under its tough regime for the biggest online platforms. A decision announced Monday to classify WhatsApp Channels as a popular online platform — joining the likes of Facebook, Instagram, X and TikTok — means that the app will now be held liable for how it handles systemic risks to users. Platforms that fail to meet regulatory requirements can be fined up to 6 percent of global annual turnover under the EU’s Digital Services Act. The verdict also lands as countries such as France are actively discussing restrictions on social media platforms for children. The decision focuses particularly on WhatsApp Channels in which admins can broadcast announcements to groups of people in a feed, making it different from the messaging feature. WhatsApp’s private messaging service is explicitly excluded. WhatsApp was aware that the decision was coming as far back as August, when it reported that Channels had approximately 51.7 million users in the EU. That crossed the EU’s threshold for Very Large Online Platforms with over 45 million users in the EU. Meta now has four months to assess and mitigate systemic risks on its platform. Those risks include the spread of illegal content, as well as threats to civic discourse, elections, fundamental rights and health. “WhatsApp Channels continue to grow in Europe and globally. As this expansion continues, we remain committed to evolving our safety and integrity measures in the region, ensuring they align with relevant regulatory expectations and our ongoing responsibility to users,” WhatsApp spokesperson Joshua Breckman said in a statement.

BRUSSELS — The European Commission opened a fresh investigation Monday into Elon Musk’s X following an explosion of non-consensual sexualized deepfakes created by the artificial intelligence chatbot Grok. The Commission will decide whether X met EU requirements to protect users when it integrated Grok into the social media platform and its underlying algorithm. X is already under investigation on several fronts under the EU’s Digital Services Act, which regulates social media platforms, and was in December fined €120 million for lapses in transparency. Penalties can reach up to 6 percent of X’s annual global revenue. The new investigation will look into whether the company properly assessed and mitigated the risks of integrating Grok, particularly those of “manipulated sexually explicit images” including some that “may amount to child sexual abuse material,” the Commission said. But the investigation “is much broader” than these images, a senior Commission official said during a briefing. The chatbot may have generated as many as 3 million non-consensual sexual images and 20,000 child sexual abuse images in the 11 days before it made changes to stop the spread of such photos, an estimate by civil society found. On top of the new investigation, the Commission will expand a 2023 probe to look into the impact of X’s decision, announced last week, to switch the algorithm for its social media platform to a Grok-based system. The Commission said Monday it could take interim steps — for example, order X to change its algorithms or shut down the chatbot — “in the absence of meaningful adjustments to the X service,” something the EU has so far shied away from doing for Musk’s platform. The threshold for such measures is “really high,” a second senior Commission official said. The image-generating feature of Grok went viral just before the end of 2025, as users instructed the chatbot to alter images of real people. This led to global outcry and calls from EU lawmakers to ban nudification AI apps as well as crack down on Grok. The platform did restrict the chatbot’s image generation abilities in January, initially by limiting them to paid subscribers of Grok. The Commission said at the time it was assessing whether changes made to Grok were sufficient. EU officials found initial changes insufficient and voiced their concerns to the platform, after which the platform took further steps. “I dare say that without our interaction, probably none of these kind of changes that they have done would have appeared,” the second official said. X did not immediately respond to POLITICO’s request for comment.

American investors have closed a $14 billion deal giving them control of the U.S. version of TikTok, raising a host of questions about what’s next for the social media app and its tens of millions of users. Under the new ownership structure, a group of investors led by Silicon Valley giant Oracle and the private equity firm Silver Lake will own more than 80 percent of the company, which draws 66 million daily users in the United States. The deal is intended to insulate the social media company from influence by China, avoiding a ban that Congress had mandated in 2024. TikTok released some information about the deal in a Thursday night announcement, but further details have yet to be made public, including whether it complies with the 2024 law. It is also uncertain whether the agreement sufficiently allays U.S. lawmakers’ concerns that the app endangers national security. Here are five crucial questions remaining about TikTok and its future: WHAT HAPPENS WITH THE ALGORITHM? TikTok’s algorithm has been key to the app’s success, as it’s remarkably effective at curating a continuous feed of videos that keep users scrolling. Lawmakers have expressed concern that the Chinese government could use the algorithm to push propaganda or surveil users, a key reason Congress passed legislation in 2024 requiring TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, to spin off an American version of the app. In announcing the deal Thursday, TikTok said that the new owners “will retrain, test, and update the content recommendation algorithm on U.S. user data.” Those measures may allay some of the national security risks associated with the algorithm, but it’s unclear if they go far enough to satisfy the 2024 law, which prohibits “cooperation” between ByteDance and the U.S. version of TikTok on operating the algorithm. Previous reports indicated that the U.S. version of TikTok would license the algorithm from ByteDance, which could be another legal stumbling block if the agreement involves continued coordination between the two companies. “The central issue is whether the TikTok U.S. entity actually owns and controls the recommendation system, or whether it is merely licensing it,” said Chris Krebs, former director of the federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. “A license means ByteDance still retains leverage over what the U.S. platform shows its 170 million users.” WILL TIKTOK STILL BE BANNED ON GOVERNMENT DEVICES? Former President Joe Biden signed the No TikTok on Government Devices Act in 2022 to prohibit the use of the app on federal phones, tablets and other devices, and at least 39 states, including California and New York, passed similar bans. The House and Senate also have their own rules banning TikTok on federal devices. (President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance, the White House and California Gov. Gavin Newsom all have active TikTok accounts, however.) Even with the deal in place, reversing the government device bans would require new legislation from federal and state lawmakers, which could prove to be a tall order. “The state bans presumably still can stay,” said Alan Rozenshtein, a former attorney adviser in the Justice Department’s national security division under President Barack Obama. “From a legal perspective, the president can’t overturn [the federal law].” COULD COMPANIES ENABLING TIKTOK STILL FACE CRIPPLING FINES UNDER A FUTURE ADMINISTRATION? TikTok temporarily went dark in the United States in January 2025 after the law forcing a sale or ban took effect. The app came back online a short time later after then President-elect Trump promised that no company, such as app stores or internet service providers, would face the law’s daily fine of $5,000 per user for flouting the ban, a penalty that could quickly add up to billions of dollars. But legal experts have consistently said an executive order or presidential promise doesn’t trump a law, especially one already upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court. According to Rozenshtein, the 2024 law leaves open the possibility that a future administration could declare the new arrangement illegal. There’s a five-year statute of limitations for the government to challenge violations of federal laws. “Imagine a situation in which the new venture sells itself back to ByteDance — obviously you’d want the next president to be able to say you’re clearly not divested anymore,” Rozenshtein told POLITICO. “If a [future] president had those powers, then presumably the president would also have the powers to say: ‘This thing that my predecessor did was a lie to begin with, so obviously I’m yanking it.’” DOES THE DEAL ADDRESS THE NATIONAL SECURITY CONCERNS? A White House official previously told POLITICO that the deal would resolve Congress’ national security concerns because the Chinese government would not have access to American users’ data, and because ByteDance would have less than 20 percent ownership of the U.S. app. Even so, congressional Republicans have vowed to review the deal to ensure it follows the law. “I don’t know what the framework says — but anything short of that, the president would be violating congressional intent,” Senate Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) told POLITICO in September. St. John’s University internet law professor Kate Klonick said the law has enough wiggle room, and gives enough deference to the president, that the deal could pass muster for the time being. “The [deal] is probably sufficient for the law, because the law was sufficiently vague — but for the letter of the law, not the spirit of the law,” she said. “What people thought at the time were serious national security concerns [in 2024] now seems to kind of have been forgotten.” HOW DOES THE DEAL ADDRESS CONCERNS ABOUT CHINA ACCESSING PEOPLE’S DATA? Under the 2024 law, ByteDance and TikTok can’t enter into any data-sharing agreements. Thursday’s announcement says the new American venture will store user data in Oracle’s cloud, where it “will operate a comprehensive data privacy and cybersecurity program that is audited and certified by third party cybersecurity experts.” That might be enough, according to Adam Conner, vice president for technology policy at the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank. “The data sharing question operationally should be solved by this [deal],” he told POLITICO. However, Conner noted that particulars around the operation of the algorithm and advertising may lead to violations of the law.

LONDON — The BBC will attempt to have Donald Trump’s defamation lawsuit over the way it edited a 2021 speech thrown out of court. Filings in the southern district of Florida published Monday said the BBC would “move to dismiss” the case because the October 2024 documentary for the flagship Panorama program which carried the edited speech was not made, produced or broadcast in the state. The court lacks “personal jurisdiction” over the BBC, and the U.S. president “fails to state a claim on multiple independent grounds,” the filing says. In a lawsuit filed last month Trump demanded more than $5 billion after accusing the corporation of misleadingly editing his Jan. 6, 2021 speech, delivered ahead of the storming of the U.S. Capitol during the 2020 presidential election certification process. Trump’s lawsuit, filed in federal court in Miami, claims the BBC “maliciously” strung together two comments Trump made more than 54 minutes apart to convey the impression that he’d urged his supporters to engage in violence. The corporation apologized to Trump when the botched edit became public but said it did not merit a defamation case. The broadcaster said the episode of its Panorama current affairs program was not shown on the global feed of the BBC News Channel, while programs on iPlayer, the BBC’s catchup service, were only available in the U.K.  Public figures claiming defamation in the U.S. have to demonstrate “actual malice,” meaning they have to show there was an intent to spread false information or some action in reckless disregard of the truth. The BBC filing says Trump “fails to plausibly allege” this. It said the documentary included “extensive coverage of his supporters and balanced coverage of his path to reelection.” BBC Director General Tim Davie and news CEO Deborah Turness announced their resignations in November after the very public row with the U.S. president hit the headlines. A BBC spokesperson said: “As we have made clear previously, we will be defending this case. We are not going to make further comment on ongoing legal proceedings.”

Europe’s biggest ever trade deal finally got the nod Friday after 25 years of negotiating.  It took blood, sweat, tears and tortured discussions to get there, but EU countries at last backed the deal with the Mercosur bloc — paving the way to create a free trade area that covers more than 700 million people across Europe and Latin America.  The agreement, which awaits approval from the European Parliament, will eliminate more than 90 percent of tariffs on EU exports. European shoppers will be able to dine on grass-fed beef from the Argentinian pampas. Brazilian drivers will see import duties on German motors come down.  As for the accord’s economic impact, well, that pales in comparison with the epic battles over it: The European Commission estimates it will add €77.6 billion (or 0.05 percent) to the EU economy by 2040.  Like in any deal, there are winners and losers. POLITICO takes you through who is uncorking their Malbec, and who, on the other hand, is crying into the Bordeaux. WINNERS Giorgia Meloni Italy’s prime minister has done it again. Giorgia Meloni saw which way the political winds were blowing and skillfully extracted last-minute concessions for Italian farmers after threatening to throw her weight behind French opposition to the deal.  The end result? In exchange for its support, Rome was able to secure farm market safeguards and promises of fresh agriculture funding from the European Commission — wins that the government can trumpet in front of voters back home. It also means that Meloni has picked the winning side once more, coming off as the team player despite the last-minute holdup. All in all, yet another laurel in Rome’s crown.  The German car industry  Das Auto hasn’t had much reason to cheer of late, but Mercosur finally gives reason to celebrate. Germany’s famed automotive sector will have easier access to consumers in LatAm. Lower tariffs mean, all things being equal, more sales and a boost to the bottom line for companies like Volkswagen and BMW. There are a few catches. Tariffs, now at 35 percent, aren’t coming down all at once. At the behest of Brazil, which hosts an auto industry of its own, the removal of trade barriers will be staggered. Electric vehicles will be given preferential treatment, an area that Europe’s been lagging behind on.  Ursula von der Leyen Mercosur is a bittersweet triumph for European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. Since shaking hands on the deal with Mercosur leaders more than a year ago, her team has bent over backwards to accommodate the demands of the skeptics and build the all-important qualified majority that finally materialized Friday. Expect a victory lap next week, when the Berlaymont boss travels to Paraguay to sign the agreement. Giorgia Meloni saw which way the political winds were blowing and skillfully extracted last-minute concessions for Italian farmers after threatening to throw her weight behind French opposition to the deal. | Ettore Ferrari/EPA On the international stage, it also helps burnish Brussels’ standing at a time when the bloc looks like a lumbering dinosaur, consistently outmaneuvered by the U.S. and China. A large-scale trade deal shows that the rules-based international order that the EU so cherishes is still alive, even as the U.S. whisked away a South American leader in chains.  But the deal came at a very high cost. Von der Leyen had to promise EU farmers €45 billion in subsidies to win them over, backtracking on efforts to rein in agricultural support in the EU budget and invest more in innovation and growth.   Europe’s farmers  Speaking of farmers, going by the headlines you could be forgiven for thinking that Mercosur is an unmitigated disaster. Surely innumerable tons of South American produce sold at rock-bottom prices are about to drive the hard-working French or Polish plowman off his land, right?  The reality is a little bit more complicated. The deal comes with strict quotas for categories ranging from beef to poultry. In effect, Latin American farmers will be limited to exporting a couple of chicken breasts per European person per year. Meanwhile, the deal recognizes special protections for European producers for specialty products like Italian parmesan or French wine, who stand to benefit from the expanded market. So much for the agri-pocalpyse now.  Mercosur is a bittersweet triumph for European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. | Olivier Matthys/EPA Then there’s the matter of the €45 billion of subsidies going into farmers’ pockets, and it’s hard not to conclude that — despite all the tractor protests and manure fights in downtown Brussels — the deal doesn’t smell too bad after all.  LOSERS Emmanuel Macron  There’s been no one high-ranking politician more steadfast in their opposition to the trade agreement than France’s President Emmanuel Macron who, under enormous domestic political pressure, has consistently opposed the deal. It’s no surprise then that France joined Poland, Austria, Ireland and Hungary to unsuccessfully vote against Mercosur.  The former investment banker might be a free-trading capitalist at heart, but he knows well that, domestically, the deal is seen as a knife in the back of long-suffering Gallic growers. Macron, who is burning through prime ministers at rates previously reserved for political basket cases like Italy, has had precious few wins recently. Torpedoing the free trade agreement, or at least delaying it further, would have been proof that the lame-duck French president still had some sway on the European stage.  Surely innumerable tons of South American produce sold at rock-bottom prices are about to drive the hard-working French or Polish plowman off his land, right? | Darek Delmanowicz/EPA Macron made a valiant attempt to rally the troops for a last-minute counterattack, and at one point it looked like he had a good chance to throw a wrench in the works after wooing Italy’s Meloni. That’s all come to nought. After this latest defeat, expect more lambasting of the French president in the national media, as Macron continues his slow-motion tumble down from the Olympian heights of the Élysée Palace.  Donald Trump Coming within days of the U.S. mission to snatch Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro and put him on trial in New York, the Mercosur deal finally shows that Europe has no shortage of soft power to work constructively with like-minded partners — if it actually has the wit to make use of it smartly.  Any trade deal should be seen as a win-win proposition for both sides, and that is just not the way U.S. President Donald Trump and his art of the geopolitical shakedown works. It also has the incidental benefit of strengthening his adversaries — including Brazilian President and Mercosur head honcho Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva — who showed extraordinary patience as he waited on the EU to get their act together (and nurtured a public bromance with Macron even as the trade talks were deadlocked). China  China has been expanding exports to Latin America, particularly Brazil, during the decades when the EU was negotiating the Mercosur trade deal. The EU-Mercosur deal is an opportunity for Europe to claw back some market share, especially in competitive sectors like automotive, machines and aviation. The deal also strengthens the EU’s hand on staying on top when it comes to direct investments, an area where European companies are still outshining their Chinese competitors. Emmanuel Macron made a valiant attempt to rally the troops for a last-minute counterattack, and at one point it looked like he had a good chance to throw a wrench in the works after wooing Italy’s Meloni. | Pool photo by Ludovic Marin/EPA More politically, China has somewhat succeeded in drawing countries like Brazil away from Western points of view, for instance via the BRICS grouping, consisting of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, and other developing economies. Because the deal is not only about trade but also creates deeper political cooperation, Lula and his Mercosur counterparts become more closely linked to Europe. The Amazon rainforest  Unfortunately, for the world’s ecosystem, Mercosur means one thing: burn, baby, burn. The pastures that feed Brazil’s herds come at the expense of the nation’s once-sprawling, now-shrinking tropical rainforest. Put simply, more beef for Europe means less trees for the world. It’s not all bad news for the climate. The trade deal does include both mandatory safeguards against illegal deforestation, as well as a commitment to the Paris Climate Agreement for its signatories. 

BRUSSELS — The European Commission has unveiled a new plan to end the dominance of planet-heating fossil fuels in Europe’s economy — and replace them with trees. The so-called Bioeconomy Strategy, released Thursday, aims to replace fossil fuels in products like plastics, building materials, chemicals and fibers with organic materials that regrow, such as trees and crops. “The bioeconomy holds enormous opportunities for our society, economy and industry, for our farmers and foresters and small businesses and for our ecosystem,” EU environment chief Jessika Roswall said on Thursday, in front of a staged backdrop of bio-based products, including a bathtub made of wood composite and clothing from the H&M “Conscious” range. At the center of the strategy is carbon, the fundamental building block of a wide range of manufactured products, not just energy. Almost all plastic, for example, is made from carbon, and currently most of that carbon comes from oil and natural gas. But fossil fuels have two major drawbacks: they pollute the atmosphere with planet-warming CO2, and they are mostly imported from outside the EU, compromising the bloc’s strategic autonomy. The bioeconomy strategy aims to address both drawbacks by using locally produced or recycled carbon-rich biomass rather than imported fossil fuels. It proposes doing this by setting targets in relevant legislation, such as the EU’s packaging waste laws, helping bioeconomy startups access finance, harmonizing the regulatory regime and encouraging new biomass supply. The 23-page strategy is light on legislative or funding promises, mostly piggybacking on existing laws and funds. Still, it was hailed by industries that stand to gain from a bigger market for biological materials. “The forest industry welcomes the Commission’s growth-oriented approach for bioeconomy,” said Viveka Beckeman, director general of the Swedish Forest Industries Federation, stressing the need to “boost the use of biomass as a strategic resource that benefits not only green transition and our joint climate goals but the overall economic security.” HOW RENEWABLE IS IT? But environmentalists worry Brussels may be getting too chainsaw-happy. Trees don’t grow back at the drop of a hat and pressure on natural ecosystems is already unsustainably high. Scientific reports show that the amount of carbon stored in the EU’s forests and soils is decreasing, the bloc’s natural habitats are in poor condition and biodiversity is being lost at unprecedented rates. Protecting the bloc’s forests has also fallen out of fashion among EU lawmakers. The EU’s landmark anti-deforestation law is currently facing a second, year-long delay after a vote in the European Parliament this week. In October, the Parliament also voted to scrap a law to monitor the health of Europe’s forests to reduce paperwork. Environmentalists warn the bloc may simply not have enough biomass to meet the increasing demand. “Instead of setting a strategy that confronts Europe’s excessive demand for resources, the Commission clings to the illusion that we can simply replace our current consumption with bio-based inputs, overlooking the serious and immediate harm this will inflict on people and nature,” said Eva Bille, the European Environmental Bureau’s (EEB) circular economy head, in a statement. TOO WOOD TO BE TRUE Environmental groups want the Commission to prioritize the use of its biological resources in long-lasting products — like construction — rather than lower-value or short-lived uses, like single-use packaging or fuel. A first leak of the proposal, obtained by POLITICO, gave environmental groups hope. It celebrated new opportunities for sustainable bio-based materials while also warning that the “sources of primary biomass must be sustainable and the pressure on ecosystems must be considerably reduced” — to ensure those opportunities are taken up in the longer term. It also said the Commission would work on “disincentivising inefficient biomass combustion” and substituting it with other types of renewable energy. That rankled industry lobbies. Craig Winneker, communications director of ethanol lobby ePURE, complained that the document’s language “continues an unfortunate tradition in some quarters of the Commission of completely ignoring how sustainable biofuels are produced in Europe,” arguing that the energy is “actually a co-product along with food, feed, and biogenic CO2.” Now, those lines pledging to reduce environmental pressures and to disincentivize inefficient biomass combustion are gone. “Bioenergy continues to play a role in energy security, particularly where it uses residues, does not increase water and air pollution, and complements other renewables,” the final text reads. “This is a crucial omission, given that the EU’s unsustainable production and consumption are already massively overshooting ecological boundaries and putting people, nature and businesses at risk,” said the EEB. Delara Burkhardt, a member of the European Parliament with the center-left Socialists and Democrats, said it was “good that the strategy recognizes the need to source biomass sustainably,” but added the proposal did not address sufficiency. “Simply replacing fossil materials with bio-based ones at today’s levels of consumption risks increasing pressure on ecosystems. That shifts problems rather than solving them. We need to reduce overall resource use, not just switch inputs,” she said. Roswall declined to comment on the previous draft at Thursday’s press conference. “I think that we need to increase the resources that we have, and that is what this strategy is trying to do,” she said.