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MGM’s new thriller “A Working Man,” with Jason Statham, emerged atop a flock of new films this weekend in North America, earning an estimated $15.2 million, industry watcher Exhibitor Relations reported Sunday.The action film, from “Suicide Squad” director David Ayer, features Statham as a military veteran who comes out of retirement to seek the kidnappers of his boss’s daughter.It grabbed the top spot from Disney’s “Snow White” remake, which saw ticket sales plunge.The big-budget Disney film plummeted from last weekend’s $45 million opening to just $14.2 million despite showing in 4,200 theaters — the year’s lowest debut for a movie opening in at least 3,000 theaters, analysts said.For “Snow White,” “any hopes of a box office rebound evaporated with a very poor showing,” said Daniel Loria, a vice president at the Boxoffice Company. While it “should still cross the $100 million mark domestically, (it) stands out as the first major box office disappointment of 2025.”Three other new releases rounded out the weekend box office.”The Chosen: Last Supper Part I,” part of a Fathom Events series about the life and teachings of Jesus, scored an unexpectedly strong $11.5 million, placing third for the Friday-through-Sunday period.Universal’s psychological horror film “The Woman in the Yard,” about a widowed single mother who receives an ominous warning from a strange woman, placed fourth, at $9.5 million. Danielle Deadwyler stars.And A24’s comedy horror film “Death of a Unicorn,” with Paul Rudd and Jenna Ortega as a father and daughter who accidentally kill a young unicorn — drawing the wrath of its parents — scored $5.8 million in ticket sales.The year’s first quarter, Loria said, will be the worst such three-month stretch since 2022, “but we expect the market to begin its rebound in April before a strong summer season kicks off.”Rounding out the top 10 were:”Princess Mononoke 4K” ($4 million)”Captain America: Brave New World” ($2.8 million)”Black Bag” ($2.2 million)”Mickey 17″ ($1.9 million)”Novocaine” ($1.5 million)

The United States will ensure “robust, ready and credible deterrence” across the Taiwan Strait, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Sunday, calling China “aggressive and coercive”.Hegseth also stopped short of publicly calling on Tokyo to hike military spending, saying in Japan he trusted the close US ally to “make the correct determination of what capabilities are needed”.”America is committed to sustaining robust, ready and credible deterrence in the Indo-Pacific, including across the Taiwan Strait,” Hegseth said, using Washington’s term for the Asia-Pacific region. Beijing has stepped up military pressure in recent years around Taiwan, including near-daily air incursions, and has not ruled out using force to bring the self-ruled island under its control.US President Donald Trump’s “America First” approach could mean weakening the US commitment for security in the region, analysts have warned.But Hegseth said the previous US administration had “created this vacuum, a perception that America was not strong, and wasn’t prepared to deter conflicts from starting”.”Our job now at this moment, here with our allies, is to say: We are re-establishing deterrence. Peace through strength, with America in the lead, is back,” the Pentagon chief told reporters.He said Washington would “build an alliance so robust that both the reality and the perception of deterrence is real and ongoing, so that the Communist Chinese don’t take the aggressive actions that some have contemplated they will”.- ‘Who makes these deals?’ -Hegseth, 44, a former infantryman and Fox News personality, hailed the “extraordinary strength of America’s alliance with Japan”.”President Trump has also made it very clear, and we reiterate, we are going to put America first. But America first does not mean America alone,” he said.”America and Japan stand firmly together in the face of aggressive and coercive actions by the Communist Chinese.”There have also been expectations that, as he has done in Europe, Trump would press its allies in Asia to increase military spending and to do more to ensure their own defence.”We have a great relationship with Japan. But we have an interesting deal with Japan that we have to protect them, but they don’t have to protect us,” Trump said this month.”I actually ask, who makes these deals?”Japan’s government has also been reeling from Trump’s decision to impose a 25 percent tariff on auto imports from April 3.The United States has 54,000 US military personnel stationed in Japan, mostly in Okinawa, east of Taiwan.Hegseth said he “did not talk specific numbers” about defence spending in his talks with Japanese counterpart Gen Nakatani on Sunday.”We’re confident that Japan will make the correct determination of what capabilities are needed inside our alliance to make sure we are standing shoulder to shoulder,” he said.”They have been a model ally and we have no doubt that will continue. But we also both recognise everybody needs to do more.”Nakatani said he told Hegseth that spending should be “implemented based on Japan’s own judgement and responsibility”. “I also explained Japan has continuously been working on a drastic strengthening of our defence capability… on which we received understanding from the US side,” he said.- Counterstrike -Japan has been shedding its strict pacifist stance, moving to obtain “counterstrike” capabilities and doubling military spending to the NATO standard of two percent of GDP.Former US President Joe Biden and Fumio Kishida, Japan’s prime minister at the time, announced a “new era” in cooperation at a summit at the White House last year.This includes the creation of a new Japan-based US headquarters to take over operational oversight of US forces in Japan from US Indo-Pacific Command in Hawaii.It will serve as a counterpart to Japan’s new Joint Operations Command for all its armed forces, making the two militaries more nimble in the case of a crisis over Taiwan or the Korean peninsula.”We will accelerate our efforts to improve inter-operability and conduct effective bilaterally joint activities across the spectrum from peacetime to contingency,” Nakatani said on Sunday.”Expansion of the Japan-US presence in (Japan’s) southwestern region is one of our alliance’s top priorities,” he said.

The White House Correspondents’ Association dropped the comedian who was to headline its annual dinner, the body said Saturday, amid tensions with US President Donald Trump, who has targeted multiple outlets over their coverage.The comedian, Amber Ruffin, has previously criticized Trump and joked that no one would want to attend next month’s dinner with him.A White House spokesman had criticized her and the WHCA over her appearance at the dinner, traditionally headlined by a comedian who makes fun of whoever is president at the time. WHCA president Eugene Daniels said in a Saturday email to members that the board unanimously decided that “we are no longer featuring a comedic performance this year.””At this consequential moment for journalism, I want to ensure the focus is not on the politics of division but entirely on awarding our colleagues for their outstanding work and providing scholarship and mentorship to the next generation of journalists,” Daniels said.He said he would give further details as the April 26 dinner nears. A White House spokesman called the decision “a cop out.”Trump’s team has clashed with the WHCA, an independent body representing journalists covering the White House, since his return to power in January.In February it stripped the WHCA of the nearly century-old power to decide which of them cover US presidential events, with Trump boasting that he was now “calling the shots” on media access. His administration said the WHCA would no longer have a “monopoly” on choosing members of the “press pool.”The press pool is a small group of reporters that covers the US president in often cramped spaces like the Oval Office and Air Force One, and shares their material with other news organizations.The WHCA — of which AFP is a member — said the decision “tears at the independence of the free press.” The White House has also banned reporters from the Associated Press news agency from the Oval Office and travelling on Air Force One since February.It did so because the AP continues to refer to the Gulf of Mexico, an international body of water, and not simply the “Gulf of America” as decreed by Trump.The AP has filed a suit against three White House officials arguing that the denial of access violates the First Amendment of the US Constitution, which guarantees freedom of speech and of the press.

Has Apple, the biggest company in the world, bungled its generative artificial intelligence strategy?Doubts blew out into the open when one of the company’s closest observers, tech analyst John Gruber, earlier this month gave a blistering critique in a blog post titled “Something Is Rotten in the State of Cupertino,” which is home to Apple’s headquarters.The respected analyst and Apple enthusiast said he was furious for not being more skeptical when the company announced last June that its Siri chatbot would be getting a major generative AI (genAI) upgrade. The technology, to be released as part of the Apple Intelligence suite of iPhone software, was to catapult the much-derided voice assistant’s capabilities beyond just giving the weather or setting a timer.Investors hoped the upgrade would launch the iPhone on a much-needed super-cycle, in which a new feature on the smartphone proves so tantalizing that users rush to snap up the latest and most expensive models.Apple Intelligence and its promised Siri upgrade was very much supposed to fuel that demand, starting as soon as the release of the iPhone 16, which came out in September.Instead Apple quietly announced on March 7 that the highly personalized Siri would not be coming as early as hoped.Adding to the pressure, Amazon in February announced a new version of its Alexa voice assistant that is powered by genAI.”It’s going to take us longer than we thought to deliver on these features and we anticipate rolling them out in the coming year,” Apple said.- Data privacy vs AI -Theories vary on why Apple is having trouble seizing the AI moment.For Marcus Collins, marketing professor at the University of Michigan, Apple’s struggles with genAI and Siri in particular may be more due to the importance the company gives to data privacy than any problem with innovating.For AI to be personalized, it needs to consume massive amounts of personal data.And “Apple hasn’t let up on the gas when it comes to privacy,” Collins told AFP.But at some point, “people’s information, creations, language… are all being exploited to help grow better AI,” and squaring that circle might be harder than bargained for by Apple.For tech analyst Avi Greengart, “The fact that Apple has advertised Apple Intelligence so heavily with the iPhone 16 is a bit of a black eye, because most of what was promised in Apple Intelligence is not in the iPhone 16.”But he cautions that even if Google’s Gemini AI features in its Android line of phones are way ahead of anything Apple has delivered, customers may not have noticed much.”Even the best implementation of AI on phones today doesn’t fundamentally change the way you use your phone yet,” he said.”No one has delivered on the full vision and that gives Apple time to catch up — but it certainly needs to catch up.”Still, Apple’s harshest critics complain that Apple rests too much on its laurels and the uber-popularity of its iPhone.Moreover, the stumbles on AI came swiftly after lackluster reception of Vision Pro, Apple’s expensive virtual reality headset that has failed to gain traction since its release in 2024.Despite the recent negative headlines for Apple and the fact that its share price is down 8 percent since the start of the year, it remains the world’s most valuable company and its stock is still up almost 30 percent from a year ago.And Apple reported a whopping $124.3 billion in revenue in the year-end holiday quarter, even if sales growth fell shy of market expectations.

Demonstrators descended on Tesla dealerships across the United States and in Europe and Canada on Saturday to protest company chief Elon Musk, who has amassed extraordinary power as a top advisor to US President Donald Trump.Waving signs with messages like “Musk is stealing our money” and “Reclaim our country,” the protests largely took place peacefully following fiery episodes of vandalism on Teslas in recent weeks that US officials have denounced as “terrorism.”Hundreds rallied Saturday outside the Tesla dealership in New York’s Manhattan.Some blasted Musk, the world’s richest man, while others demanded the shuttering of his so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which is dramatically slashing the federal government.Amy Neifeld, a 70-year-old psychologist who had not joined a protest since marching against the Vietnam War in the 1970s, accused Musk of leading the country toward fascism.”I’m Jewish, so I grew up with a great awareness of fascism,” she told AFP. “And it has just gotten uglier and uglier” since Trump returned to the White House.”He acts like he’s the vice president,” said New York protester Eva Mueller of musk. “He’s dismantling, actively, our government, he’s dismantling our democracy.”The protest was organized by the environmental activist group Planet Over Profit, which argues “stopping Musk will help save lives and protect our democracy.”In Washington’s posh Georgetown neighborhood, some 150 people gathered in a festive mood on an unseasonably warm day, dancing and cheering as passing cars honked.Protests also took place in Florida, Massachusetts and California, as well as in in European cities such as London, Berlin and Paris.In Canada’s Vancouver, where around one hundred people protested at a Tesla dealership, one person in a dinosaur costume held a placard that said, “You thought the Nazis were extinct? Don’t buy a Swasticar.”A small group of Americans held signs outside a Tesla dealership in the French capital, including one that read “Send Musk to Mars now.”Musk and Trump “are destroying our democracy, not obeying the basic rules of our country, and firing people at agencies that do very important work,” said Raf, 59, a Paris protester who did not wish to give his last name.Asked for reaction to the protests, Tesla did not immediately respond.Acts of vandalism against Tesla vehicles, dealerships and other facilities have spread for weeks, in protest both against Musk’s ruthless job-cutting work, and what has been seen as his unwelcome interference in politics.US Attorney General Pam Bondi has denounced the attacks on Tesla as “domestic terrorism.”

When “The Last of Us” — the smash hit series about a post-apocalyptic society ravaged by a mass fungal infection — arrived on our screens in 2023, the real world was emerging from a pandemic.Its timely premise evidently struck a chord, as the video game adaptation’s debut season drew a record-breaking 32 million US viewers per episode, according to HBO.Now season two, which premieres April 13 and hinges on themes of conflict and vengeance, will be equally relevant and prescient, promises returning star Pedro Pascal.Part of the show’s strength is its ability “to see human relationships under crisis and in pain, and intelligently draw political allegory, societal allegory, and base it off the world we’re living in,” said the actor, who plays lead character Joel.”Storytelling is cathartic in so many ways… I think there’s a very healthy and sometimes sick pleasure in that kind of catharsis — in a safe space,” he told a recent press conference.In the first season, smuggler Joel is forced to take teenage Ellie (Bella Ramsey) — seemingly the one human immune to the deadly cordyceps fungus — with him as he crosses the United States seeking his brother.- ‘Conflicts’ -Although fans of the original video games will know what to expect from season two, HBO is trying to keep plot details of the dark and gritty second installment under wraps.A recent trailer makes clear that Joel and Ellie have come into conflict with each other, and a new character Abby (Kaitlyn Dever) is a soldier on a murderous rampage. In a quirk of fortune, rising star Dever (“Booksmart,” “Dopesick”) was originally in talks to play Ellie when a film adaptation of “The Last of Us” was in development in the mid-2010s.Though the film collapsed, she became a fan of the games, and said getting cast as Abby — a main, playable character in video game “The Last of Us Part II” — for the TV series years later was “surreal.””I was a fan of the game. It was a real bonding moment for me and my dad playing it together,” she reflected.”And to have it come back around, what, 10-plus years later?… It just felt right. Abby felt right.”Gabriel Luna, who returns as Joel’s brother Tommy, agreed with Pascal that “there’s a huge catharsis element” to watching the second season at a time when, in the real world, conflicts are raging and alliances are fracturing.”The first season, we made a story about a pandemic, fearing that maybe there was a fatigue. But I think the experience that everyone had just gave them an entry point to what we were doing,” he said.He continued: “I think the second game… and the second season is about conflicts. Where do they start? And who started it?”Right now, all over the world, we’re dealing with these conflicts… People are stuck in the wheel of vengeance. Can it be broken? Will it be broken? And that’s where we are.” 

As he has done for years, Erik Payan had just opened up his tire repair shop in the small Texas town of Cleveland on February 24 and was getting to work when armed and masked US immigration agents swooped in to arrest him and take him away.”They’ve got me,” he told his distraught wife over the phone.While it wasn’t an unheard of scene in the United States, such incidents have drawn the glare of scrutiny as President Donald Trump, newly returned to the White House, has lashed out at migrants with particularly violent rhetoric — raising concerns among many who lack papers that they may be swept up at random for expulsion.- Overstayed visa -Payan, a Mexican, has lived for 20 of his 51 years in the United States. He entered on a work visa, but stayed on after it expired, making a life with his wife and three daughters, the youngest of them US-born. His store is licensed, he pays taxes and a mortgage, and is his family’s main breadwinner. One daughter is disabled; a granddaughter has a heart condition.Payan goes to church on Sundays and his neighbors vouch for him. His roots are now in Texas, but he lacks the documents to stay legally. His situation is much like many of the millions of other undocumented people living in the United States — a group estimated officially at 11 million but possibly closer to 14 million, according to a recent report from the NGO Migration Policy Institute.- No criminal record -Up to now, the undocumented were largely left alone, many working in some of the country’s most arduous and lowest-paid jobs. But Trump insists that their numbers include drug dealers, violent criminals and terrorists, and has vowed to deport millions of them.Payan, who has no criminal record, was swept up in one of the hundreds of nationwide raids Trump launched immediately upon his return to the White House. “I cried, but crying wasn’t going to help,” said his wife, 55-year-old Alejandrina Morales, who described their case on social media. The tears quickly turned to determination. “I’m going to fight, I’m going to defend my husband,” she recalls thinking.Payan’s attorney Silvia Mintz said that despite Trump’s promises of mass deportation, a process must be followed.- ‘They have options’ -“That’s not how really the law works,” Mintz said. “Anybody who is in the United States has the right to due process, and… a judge gets to decide” whether they remain in detention or are deported. Most importantly, she added, “They have options.”Using documentation to prove Payan had been a law-abiding, tax-paying worker for years, Mintz managed to secure his release on bail after a 27-day detention.Now begins a fight to legalize him.Mintz said undocumented immigrants can fight to stay by demonstrating that they have ties to the country and family members who could be harmed by their absence.There is also a possibility for children born in the United States — who enjoy “birthright citizenship,” though Trump is trying to end that — to legalize their parents once they turn 21.But in the meantime, the risk of detention and deportation persists.Mintz argues that the country desperately needs immigration reform to open a path to legal residency and citizenship.- Billions in taxes -The first thing Payan did upon his release was to reopen his tire store. “We are not criminals, we’re hard-working people,” he said. “Yes, we’re not from here, but without the support of Hispanic workers, this country is nothing.”He went on: “I’m not saying bad people haven’t come from our countries, but there are more of us good people. Let them concentrate on finding the criminals.”In 2022, undocumented workers paid an estimated $97 billion in taxes, according to the group Americans for Tax Fairness. Deporting millions of them, it said, could spark a devastating contraction, worse than during the 2008 financial crisis.”They have to pay taxes… but unfortunately the law prohibits them from getting any incentive or anything back,” said Cesar Espinosa, executive director of the NGO FIEL, which works with immigrants.He said it was important to recognize the contributions migrants make, and to push for immigration reform, “so other people can have access to the American dream.”During Payan’s detention, he said, he sometimes slept in unheated rooms and caught a severe cold.He’s still coughing, but now he’s home. His customers honk as they drive past his tire store, celebrating his return. His wife Alejandrina celebrates too: “They had taken the captain of my boat,” she said, “and I was rowing alone.”

Demonstrators descended on Tesla dealerships across the United States and Europe on Saturday to protest company chief Elon Musk, who has amassed extraordinary power as a top advisor to US President Donald Trump.Waving signs with messages like “Musk is stealing our money” and “Reclaim our country,” the protests took place peacefully following fiery episodes of vandalism on Teslas in recent weeks that US officials have denounced as “terrorism.”Hundreds rallied Saturday outside the Tesla dealership in New York’s Manhattan.Some blasted Musk, the world’s richest man, while others demanded the shuttering of his so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which is dramatically slashing the federal government.Amy Neifeld, a 70-year-old psychologist who had not joined a protest since marching against the Vietnam War in the 1970s, said Musk is leading the country toward “fascism.””I’m Jewish, so I grew up with a great awareness of fascism,” she told AFP. “And it has just gotten uglier and uglier” since Trump returned to the White House.”He acts like he’s the vice president,” said New York protester Eva Mueller. “He’s dismantling, actively, our government, he’s dismantling our democracy.”The protest was organized by the environmental activist group Planet Over Profit, which argues “stopping Musk will help save lives and protect our democracy.”In Washington’s posh Georgetown neighborhood, some 150 people gathered in a festive mood on an unseasonably warm day, dancing and cheering as passing cars honked.Protests also took place in Florida, Massachusetts and California, and in European cities such as London, Berlin and Paris.A small group of Americans held signs outside a Tesla dealership in the French capital, including one that read “Send Musk to Mars now.”Musk and Trump “are destroying our democracy, not obeying the basic rules of our country, and firing people at agencies that do very important work,” said Raf, 59, a Paris protester who did not wish to give his last name.Asked for reaction to the protests, Tesla did not immediately respond.Acts of vandalism against Tesla vehicles, dealerships and other facilities have spread for weeks, in protest both against Musk’s ruthless job-cutting work, and what has been seen as his unwelcome interference in politics.US Attorney General Pam Bondi has denounced the attacks on Tesla as “domestic terrorism.”

An American woman freed by the Taliban in Afghanistan celebrated her release, in a video shared Saturday by US President Donald Trump, in which she thanked him for helping secure her freedom.In a video shared on Trump’s Truth Social account, Faye Hall is seen smiling and in apparently good health, saying: “Thank you for bringing me home.”Hall, a British couple and their Afghan translator were detained on February 1 as they traveled to central Bamiyan province.Washington’s former envoy to Kabul, Zalmay Khalilzad, said Hall was in the care of the Qatari delegation in Kabul. “American citizen Faye Hall, just released by the Taliban, is now in the care of our friends, the Qataris in Kabul, and will soon be on her way home,” Khalilzad, who has been part of a US delegation working on Taliban hostage releases, wrote on X.While at the Qatari embassy, Hall “has been confirmed in good health after undergoing a series of medical checks,” according to a source with knowledge of the release.She was released on Thursday following a court order and with logistical support from Qatar, the source added.In the video promoted by Trump’s account, Hall said she was proud to be a US citizen and urged support for Afghan women held in Taliban jails.”Thank you, Mr President,” she said. “And I just want you to know, all the women in the Afghan jail, they always ask me, ‘When is Trump coming?’ You, truly, they just treat you like their savior. They’re waiting for you to come and set them free.”In the post accompanying the video, Trump said: “Thank you Faye — So honored with your words!”Hall, identified by the Taliban’s interior ministry as Chinese-American, was detained along with Peter and Barbie Reynolds, who are in their 70s, as they travelled to the British couple’s home in central Bamiyan province. Their Afghan translator was also arrested.Taliban officials have refused to detail the reasons for their arrest, but one report said Hall had been detained on charges of using a drone without authorization.- Hopes for ‘new chapter’ -Khalilzad had been in the Afghan capital earlier this month on a rare visit by US officials to meet Taliban authorities, accompanying US hostage envoy Adam Boehler. Following their visit, the Taliban government announced the release of US citizen George Glezmann after more than two years of detention, in a deal brokered by Qatar.He and Hall are among several Americans to be released from Taliban custody this year. In January, two Americans detained in Afghanistan — Ryan Corbett and William McKenty — were freed in exchange for an Afghan fighter, Khan Mohammed, who was convicted of narco-terrorism in the United States. At least one other US citizen, Mahmood Habibi, is still held in Afghanistan.The British couple detained with Hall remain in Taliban custody.Their daughter has expressed grave fears for her father’s health and appealed to the Taliban authorities to free them. The Reynolds, who married in Kabul in 1970, have run school training programs in the country for 18 years.They remained in Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover in 2021 when the British embassy withdrew its staff. The government in Kabul is not recognized by any country, but several, including Russia, China and Turkey, have kept their embassies open in the Afghan capital. Qatar, too, has maintained diplomatic channels with the Taliban and has facilitated negotiations for the release of US hostages.Since Trump’s reelection, the Kabul government has expressed hopes for a “new chapter” with Washington.

Britain’s government is hoping to reach a last-minute post-Brexit trade agreement with Washington to avoid — or at least mitigate — more tariffs set to be announced on Wednesday by US President Donald Trump. – Current position? -Britain has set out to strike a trade deal with the United States since departing the European Union at the start of the decade, but had been unsuccessful under the previous Conservative government.Prime Minister Keir Starmer, leader of the Labour party that won power in July, visited Washington at the end of February and came away hopeful an accord could be reached.Trump himself held out the prospect of a “great” deal that could avoid tariffs on Britain, hailing Starmer as a tough negotiator.Talks have continued, with Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds recently visiting Washington, while Starmer and Trump took up the baton in a phone call earlier this week.It is thought that the UK government wants to agree some kind of trade deal ahead of April 2 — termed “Liberation Day” by Trump, when he is set to unveil supposedly “reciprocal” tariffs, tailored to different trading partners.It would follow Trump’s announcement this week of imposing steep tariffs on imported vehicles and auto parts, vowing retaliation as trade tensions intensify and price hikes appear on the horizon.”We’re engaged in discussions with the United States about mitigating the impact of tariffs,” Starmer said heading into the weekend.Finance minister Rachel Reeves on Thursday said Britain would not seek to “escalate” trade wars, in contrast to strong comments by other major economic powers that hinted at retaliation in response to the auto-sector tariffs.- What kind of deal? -Downing Street has described a potential agreement as an “economic prosperity deal”, indicating it will fall short of a free trade deal ultimately sought by London.As it stands, the United States is the UK’s single largest country trading partner.”Some type of arrangement that might let the UK escape some tariffs is possible but it would not be a full-scale trade deal,” Jonathan Portes, professor of economics at King’s College London, told AFP.”Brexit is a double edged sword — it gives us more flexibility and we can negotiate with a view to our own interests. “But equally, it means we have less weight than as part of the EU and moreover we cannot afford to agree to anything that complicates our trading relationship with the EU,” Portes added.- What could the UK concede? -UK media has reported that London may scrap a tax on tech giants to avert US tariffs under Trump and clear a pathway to a trade deal.Starmer in response stressed that “in the end, our national interest has to come first, which means all options are on the table”.His spokesman added that the UK will “make sure that businesses pay their fair share of tax, including businesses in the digital sector”.The digital tax is currently worth about £800 million ($1 billion) annually to the UK Treasury.Reynolds conceded that the digital tax is not “something that can never change or we can never have a conversation about”.Portes, along with David Henig, director of the UK Trade Policy Project, pointed to the risk of altering Britain’s tax policy in return for a promise from Trump over tariff exemptions.”If Trump keeps his word and the UK gains significant benefits as a result, then eliminating a tax could be a good deal,” Henig told AFP. “That, however, is quite a gamble.”