Being part of almost every conversation at this week’s meeting of the global central bankers was one big unknown: How artificial intelligence will impact the world economy and therefore their mandate to ​ensure financial stability.

The consensus of those discussions at the European Central Bank’s (ECB) annual conference in the windy hills of Portugal was that AI has the power to disrupt everything and ‌create problems they can’t even imagine right now: in financial and labor markets, in bank lending, for security, and even for power demand.

“If AI overdelivers, it will impact financial stability. If AI underdelivers, it will impact financial stability,” Torsten Slok at Apollo Global Management told the arbiters of interest rates around the world at one of the main panel sessions in the resort of Sintra.

AI was such an overarching theme in Sintra that the topic found its way ​into every discussion, from immigration and supervision to climate.

It even outdid new Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh, making his debut meeting with fellow central bankers, as the clear star of ​the three-day show.

While AI can improve every corner of life, many speakers feared that it can also disrupt it, at times illegally, and that finance officials have few, if any, tools to stop it.

“This is the biggest time of consequence to each of our economies, I think, in our lifetime,” Warsh said about the ​AI revolution.

“Who knew when the internet was born that the internet was going to create a million and a half jobs as Uber drivers? We are in the first to second inning of this ​revolution,” he told the ECB Forum.

Inflating bubbles

In the case of trading, automation is already running most functions. But an AI-driven boost could inflate bubbles at warp speed, then crash them, profiting both on the way up and on the way down in a type of collusion that is now illegal.

“Something that is even more advanced and potentially more disturbing is the ability of these algorithms to coordinate on a manipulative path of prices,” University of Pennsylvania ​professor Itay Goldstein said.

“These algorithms indeed manage to achieve this kind of manipulation, creating bubbles leading to crashes, and this, I think, has more significant implications for financial stability,” he added.

One potential bubble ​AI is already creating is that of AI stocks, in part generated by massive capital spending on the building blocks of AI, which Slok estimated had added one percentage point to U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) alone.

While valuations have retreated ‌in recent ⁠weeks, experts liken the rapid rise in pricing to some of the biggest asset price busts in history, like the British railway mania of the 1840s, the roaring 1920s, or the dotcom boom.

“The scale and pace of the current AI investment boom, accompanied by expectations of large productivity payoffs, bear a resemblance to these precedents, highlighting potential downside risks in the near term,” the Bank for International Settlements said in a report.

Supervising the unexplainable

AI will also help but complicate lending. Banks will be able to do more sophisticated credit analysis and extend funding to borrowers now outside their traditional sphere.

But supervising this will ​be a nightmare.

“How do supervisors assess those kinds ​of agentic loan decisions? They are a little ⁠bit black box. There’s potentially a lack of explainability, and I think that is a key supervisory challenge,” Tobias Adrian, a senior IMF official, said.

AI will also drive a wedge between richer and poorer firms and countries.

Defending against malicious threats will become even more expensive, and otherwise viable firms will ​struggle to protect themselves.

“When you think of the most outrageous attacks, they’re often attacking the weakest link,” Adrian said.

Sarah Breeden, a Bank of England ​deputy governor, said a ⁠potential solution may be to create some sort of insurance scheme, likening it to deposit insurance in case of bank failures.

“In a cyber context, do we need systems that allow one institution to pick up another’s basic functions during disruption?” she said.

But the ultimate risk is that the excessive success of AI could fundamentally undermine the global economy.

If AI delivers on some of the most optimistic efficiency expectations, machines could replace ⁠humans en masse, ​leading to large unemployment. This then reduces disposable incomes and pushes the economy into recession, undermining the case for the ​investment.

But if AI is less successful, then the massive investment in the sector fails to deliver the expected returns.

“The internet proved to be better than anybody imagined, created whole new businesses, but we still got the dotcom bubble,” Bank of Canada ​Governor Tiff Macklem said. “It doesn’t mean there can’t be a period where the market gets ahead of itself, and you see an entrenchment.”

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Türkiye and the Netherlands agreed on a new road map to advance commercial and economic cooperation during the sixth meeting of the Türkiye-Netherlands Joint Economic and Trade Committee (JETCO), Trade Minister Ömer Bolat said Thursday.

“We successfully held the 6th Meeting of the Türkiye-Netherlands JETCO today in The Hague,” Bolat wrote on Turkish social media platform NSosyal.

The meeting was co-chaired by Bolat and Dutch Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation Minister Sjoerd Sjoerdsma.

Bolat said the two sides “outlined the road map for commercial and economic cooperation” between Türkiye and the Netherlands for the upcoming period.

Under the JETCO framework, the two countries discussed ways to advance cooperation in strategic areas, including bilateral trade and investments, contracting and technical consultancy services, cooperation in third countries, support for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), energy, agriculture, water management, transportation, financial cooperation, and the circular economy.

The ministers also exchanged views on key items on the EU agenda, particularly the modernization of the customs union and green transformation.

Bolat said Türkiye and the Netherlands reaffirmed their shared commitment to further deepening their strong economic partnership based on mutual benefit, while expanding cooperation into new areas.

He noted that bilateral trade volume rose from $6.3 billion in 2015 to $13.3 billion in 2025, more than doubling over the decade.

The Netherlands remains Türkiye’s largest foreign investor, with an investment stock of $39.2 billion, while Turkish investments in the Netherlands reached $24.3 billion, according to Bolat.

The Netherlands is one of Türkiye’s key economic partners in Europe, with close ties in trade, logistics, agriculture, energy, water technologies, finance and investment. The country also serves as an important base for Turkish companies expanding into European markets.

JETCO meetings are designed to strengthen bilateral trade and investment ties by bringing together public authorities and business representatives from both countries. The mechanism also provides a platform to address trade barriers, identify new areas of cooperation and support private-sector partnerships.

Bolat said the common vision set out in the 6th JETCO Protocol signed at the meeting would “pave the way for new opportunities in trade, investment, and technology,” contribute to stronger partnerships between Turkish and Dutch companies, and further deepen economic ties.

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Turkish conglomerate IC Holding plans to develop up to 20 small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs) in Türkiye and neighboring countries under a strategic partnership with U.S.-based ARC Clean Technology, a senior executive said on Wednesday.

The company, one of the main contractors on Türkiye’s first nuclear power plant project, Akkuyu, signed an agreement with ARC in April to deploy the company’s sodium-cooled advanced SMR technology.

Under the plan, IC Holding aims to build 10 reactors with a combined installed capacity of 1,000 megawatts (MW) in Türkiye, while developing another 10 reactors in neighboring countries, Murad Bayar, chair of IC Nuclear Technology, said.

Türkiye seeks to expand nuclear generation alongside renewable energy as it pursues its net-zero emissions goals.

In addition to the four-reactor Akkuyu plant, the government plans to build large-scale nuclear power stations in Sinop on the Black Sea coast and in the Thrace region.

It targets 15 gigawatts (GW) of conventional nuclear capacity, while also aiming to install 5 GW of SMR capacity by 2050. Akkuyu will have a combined installed capacity of 4,800 MW.

Although mass-producible SMR-type power plants, which are smaller and less expensive than conventional nuclear power plants that generate thousands of MW of electricity, are viewed as one of the technologies of the future, there are very few operational examples of them worldwide.

Technology platform

IC’s Bayar said the company intends not only to construct SMRs but also to establish a long-term technology platform covering reactor development, licensing, localization, supply chain creation and commercial deployment.

“We want to build not only an SMR project in Türkiye, but also a long-term technology platform for developing, licensing, localizing and commercializing SMR technology,” he told Reuters.

He said IC and ARC are negotiating a licensing agreement focused on commercializing the technology across Türkiye, Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Central Asia, while ARC will concentrate on North American and European markets.

First projects, investment plans

Bayar said he expects the first ARC-based commercial SMR to enter operation in the United States or Canada within four to eight years, with Türkiye’s first project expected to follow.

IC aims to obtain regulatory approval from Türkiye’s Nuclear Regulatory Authority within four years.

Each ARC reactor is designed to generate 100 MW of electricity. Bayar estimated the first plant would require investment of around $500 million, equivalent to $5 million per MW. As the technology matures and production scales up, costs are expected to decline to around $300 million per plant, or $3 million per MW.

While upfront capital costs remain relatively high compared with conventional power plants, Bayar said SMRs are expected to benefit from lower operating costs once commissioned. IC plans to market electricity through bilateral power purchase agreements.

The company expects to serve as the investor, engineering contractor and operator of the first ARC-based SMR in Türkiye.

For future projects, it may participate in one or more of those roles, while also exploring opportunities within the SMR supply chain. However, Bayar said the company does not currently intend to enter the nuclear fuel business.

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President Donald Trump took in nearly $1.2 billion from his crypto businesses last year, a federal filing released Tuesday shows, locking in profits while his investors were socked with losses.

Mere startups when he took the oath of office, the new ventures have now eclipsed in revenue much of his vast property portfolio that took him decades to accumulate. Fueling their rise were billionaire investors and Trump’s own move to quash a federal crackdown on the industry.

Trump got more than $500 million from his World Liberty Financial business selling new crypto products, including “governance tokens,” according to the required annual disclosure report with the Office of Government Ethics. It also showed another crypto business, CIC Digital LLC, took in more than $600 million from sales of souvenir-type “meme” coins stamped with his face.

Both the tokens and the coins have plunged in value since the sales.

Trump also took in millions last year from selling Trump-branded Bibles, sneakers and other small items in another unprecedented move for the presidency. The sale of Trump-branded watches alone brought in $4.7 million.

On Wednesday, Trump said he ​had nothing ⁠to do with his finances, suggesting that “everybody’s profiting” from his time in power.

“You know why I’m profiting, because the stock market’s going up, everybody’s profiting,” he told reporters.

Asked about criticisms that he was using his position to enrich himself, the billionaire president said his earnings were placed in blind trusts to ensure that he could not do so.

“I don’t get involved in my personal (finances), we have funds that run my money,” Trump said. “I’ve made a lot of money before I became president, and they invest my money, and I don’t talk to them.”

‘We’re all profiting’

The 927-page disclosure form paints a stark, if incomplete picture of the massive growth of the president’s wealth since taking office last January through a web of business interests – many of which have benefited from the policy moves of Trump’s own government. Trump has insisted that his sons direct his finances but the arrangement rejects the conflict of interest protections that his recent predecessors in office had instituted.

Forbes estimates Trump’s net worth at $6 billion, up from $2.3 billion in 2024.

Trump on Wednesday insisted that his wealth was due to his prior career, despite the fact that the earnings were related to crypto ventures launched during his first year back in the White House.

“I don’t know if I’ve had a better career in politics or business, but I had a great career in business, and you know, you saw the cash, and you report the different things,” he said.

“So we’re all profiting. I’m profiting because I have a lot of money and a lot of cash.”

Trump business growing abroad

The rise of crypto relative to Trump’s property is especially noteworthy because he first rode to office boasting of his property wins. It’s also remarkable because that mainstay business also boomed last year. Trump took in tens of millions in fees from a flurry of new hotel, resort and condo deals overseas that amounts to the biggest property expansion ever in the century since the family business was founded.

Many of those countries were negotiating with the U.S. over tariffs, military aid and other important matters while the family business was striking the deals.

A property in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) generated $10.4 million for the Trump business last year. One in Saudi Arabia being built by a real estate developer close to the ruling family sent the president’s company $9 million. And one in Bucharest, Romania, and another in Qatar sent him $5 million each.

One of his prominent domestic properties, Mar-a-Lago in Florida, notched big growth last year, too.

Trump took in $77 million from the property, a 50% jump from the year earlier when he was just another citizen, as heads of state and business people flocked to it in his new term.

The disclosure report doesn’t give profit figures, just revenue, so it’s impossible to know how much he is earning.

Billion-dollar crypto man

After taking office last year, Trump reversed the Biden administration’s tough stance on the crypto industry and pushed policies friendly to the industry.

But regulators still had some concerns. Before Trump’s World Liberty began selling “governance tokens,” they issued warnings about this new kind of crypto asset, saying that unlike stocks, the tokens offer no ownership stake in the issuing company, just voting power on certain corporate policies, and are difficult to value.

Buyers pounced anyway, including a Chinese billionaire who spent $75 million on the tokens and $200 million on the souvenir coins. In February last year, a federal lawsuit charging him with duping investors was paused before being settled for a $10 million fine.

The billionaire, Justin Sun, has repeatedly denied his spending on Trump businesses had anything to do with his federal case, while World Liberty has dismissed the notion of a conflict of interest.

Meanwhile, investors have seen the value of their Trump-tied holdings drop significantly.

The price of World Liberty tokens has fallen 80% since they started trading in September. And the Trump souvenir coins that spiked to more than $74 in the days after launching in January 2025 now sell for $1.68.

The White House has repeatedly said Trump put his business in a trust managed by his sons and is not involved in its decisions and that there are no ethics issues to discuss.

“Neither the President nor his family has ever engaged – or will ever engage – in conflicts of interest. President Trump proudly made the United States the crypto capital of the world through executive actions,” White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said in a statement.

Kelly added: “All actions by President Trump and his administration are taken in the best interest of ⁠the ⁠American people – and any so-called ‘reporters’ pushing otherwise are recycling the same, tired, false narrative that Democrats and the legacy media have been pushing for a decade.”

The Trump umbrella company, the Trump Organization, has said its deals overseas were with private companies, not with governments.

Still, it is difficult to know what is truly private in countries ruled by authoritarians, royal families and one-party governments.

For a new Trump resort in Vietnam, the report shows Trump took in $5 million last year after the ruling Communist Party sent its deputy prime minister to sign off on the deal and, according to The New York Times, pushed farmers off the land to make way for the construction.

Türkiye is ​interested in joining the European Union’s ⁠payments system, and related financial institutions ​are ​working on ⁠the issue, Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said Wednesday.

Fidan was responding to a question at a press ⁠conference about ⁠his talks with EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas and two other EU commissioners that took ⁠place on Tuesday in Ankara.

Türkiye and ​the EU have been ​holding talks about ⁠the bloc’s 41-country ‌Single Euro ⁠Payments ‌Area (SEPA) that makes cross-border ​euro-currency payments ⁠cheaper, faster ⁠and more secure.

Users ⁠in far smaller Balkan candidates Albania, Moldova, Montenegro and North Macedonia, which adopted the scheme last ​year, could save up to 500 million euros ($568.7 million), the EU says.

Earlier this year, now-former EU envoy to Ankara, Jurgis Vilcinskas, said the bloc had pitched to Türkiye the idea that the candidate country could join SEPA to boost integration efforts and benefit those sending money abroad.

Under SEPA, Turkish banks could stand to lose revenues on transfers, which vary widely based on size. A Türkiye-Europe transfer of 1,000 euros to 5,000 euros ​can cost 40 euros, according ​to Western Union.

Europe is ⁠Türkiye’s largest trading partner, with more than 200 billion euros in volume. Although bloc membership talks have been stalled for years, both say they want to modernize ​their customs union and move to boost economic ties.

Earlier this year, ​Odile Renaud‑Basso, president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), said SEPA would “basically make transactions cost-free.”

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The European Union on Wednesday took a first step toward what it aims to be curbing unfair competition from foreign online retailers such as Shein, Temu and ⁠AliExpress by imposing a 3 euro fee ($3.40) on low-value e-commerce imports ⁠from China that previously entered the bloc duty-free.

The move is another setback for platforms that used customs exemptions to sell goods at ultra-low prices, fuelling rapid growth and prompting complaints from retailers ​and policymakers.

The U.S., their biggest market, ended its “de minimis” exemption for imports from ​China ⁠in May and for all imports at the end of August.

The fees, which take effect on Wednesday, will be charged for each customs classification in a shipment. A parcel containing three different types of items would incur a total charge of 9 euros, while a parcel containing multiple dresses or multiple toys would be charged 3 euros.

Duty exemptions on low-value imports have been in place for decades, with the current threshold of 150 euros introduced in 2008. But the number of e-commerce parcels entering the European Union under the exemption has surged, reaching 5.8 billion in 2025 from 1.4 billion in 2022.

“In a different trading world, this made a lot of sense, but that world doesn’t exist anymore. It’s been turned on its head by e-commerce, especially from China,” EU lawmaker Dirk Gotink, who leads ⁠the ⁠customs reform topic in the European Parliament, said in an interview.

“The exemption was abused and misused on an industrial scale to create a competitive advantage at the expense of EU businesses.”

E-commerce air cargo volumes set to drop

Derek Lossing, an e-commerce and air cargo consultant who runs Cirrus Global Advisors, said he expects air shipments of e-commerce goods into the EU to fall by 10% to 35% in the weeks after the fees take effect, with likely repercussions for global air cargo volumes.

“The question is how effective the platforms are in pivoting to other markets,” said Lossing. “When the U.S. ended de minimis, Europe was a really good ⁠alternative that platforms could shift to – but now there’s not a really clear alternative to Europe.”

Lossing said platforms may pressure suppliers to absorb some of the additional costs to limit price increases for consumers and protect profitability.

Shein has been preparing for the change by ​expanding warehouse space in Wroclaw, Poland, and shipping more products to the EU in bulk.

Neither Shein nor Temu responded to ​requests for comment.

Consumer prices likely to rise as platforms pass duties on

The 3 euro charge is a temporary measure that is due to be replaced by category-specific duties from July 1, 2028, when ⁠the new EU ‌Customs Authority is ‌scheduled to begin operations.

The fees are likely to increase consumer prices ⁠as platforms pass on at least some of the additional costs.

AliExpress, ‌owned by Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, said in a statement that product listings would carry a “Price includes duties and VAT” label where applicable. ​For other items, customers would be shown a ⁠breakdown of import charges before completing a purchase.

Amazon, which launched its Amazon Haul ⁠ultra-cheap service after Temu and Shein’s rapid growth, said 97% of its EU shipments last year were fulfilled ⁠from warehouses within the bloc. For ​products shipped from outside the EU, customers would also be shown import charges before checking out, it said.

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