The United States and Saudi Arabia will sign a preliminary agreement to cooperate over the country’s ambitions to develop a civil nuclear industry, US Energy Secretary Chris Wright told reporters in the Saudi capital Riyadh on Sunday.

Read-Saudi stocks plunge by $133bn in biggest fall since 2020

Wright, who had met with Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman earlier on Sunday, said Riyadh and Washington were on a “a pathway” to reaching an agreement to work together to develop a Saudi civil nuclear programme.

Wright, on his first visit to the kingdom as secretary as part of tour of energy-producing Gulf states, said further details over a memorandum detailing the energy cooperation between Riyadh and Washington would come later this year.

“For a US partnership and involvement in nuclear here, there will definitely be a 123 agreement … there’s lots of ways to structure a deal that will accomplish both the Saudi objectives and the American objectives,” he said.

A so-called 123 agreement with Riyadh refers to Section 123 of the US Atomic Energy Act of 1954 and is required to permit the US government and American companies to work with entities in the country to develop a civil nuclear industry.

Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil exporter, is seeking to generate substantial renewable energy and reduce emissions, under the crown prince’s Vision 2030 reform plan. At least some of this is expected to come from nuclear energy.

US President Donald Trump’s administration granted exclusions from steep tariffs on smartphones, computers and some other electronics imported largely from China, providing a big break to tech firms like Apple that rely on imported products.

Read-Trump tariff hike: China raises duties on US goods to 125%

China said it was evaluating the impact of the exclusions. In a statement on Sunday, the Ministry of Commerce called the move a “small step by US to correct its wrong practice of unilateral ‘reciprocal tariffs’.”

“The bell on a tiger’s neck can only be untied by the person who tied it,” the ministry said, urging the US to make a major step in correcting what it called its wrongdoing and cancelling the tariffs completely.

In a notice to shipperslate on April 11, the US Customs and Border Protection agency published a list of tariff codes excluded from the import taxes, with retroactive effect from 12:01 a.m. EDT (0401 GMT) on April 5.

Product categories

It featured 20 product categories, including the broad 8471 code for all computers, laptops, disc drives and automatic data processing. It also included semiconductor devices, equipment, memory chips and flat panel displays.

The notice gave no explanation for the move, but the exclusion provides welcome relief to major technology firms such as Apple, Dell Technologies and many other importers.

The action also excludes the specified electronics from Trump’s 10 per cent “baseline” tariffs on goods from most countries other than China, easing import costs for semiconductors from Taiwan and Apple iPhones produced in India.

Asked on Saturday about his reasoning for the exemptions and plans for semiconductors, Trump told reporters: “I’ll give you that answer on Monday. We’ll be very specific on Monday … we’re taking in a lot of money, as a country, we’re taking in a lot of money.”

Chinese imports

For the Chinese imports, the exclusion of the tech products applies only to Trump’s reciprocal tariffs, which climbed to 125 per cent this week, according to a White House official. Trump’s prior 20 per cent duties on all Chinese imports that he said were related to the US fentanyl crisis remain in place.

But the official said Trump would launch a new national security trade investigation into semiconductors soon that could lead to other new tariffs.

Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives called the announcement about the tech exclusions “the most bullish news we could have heard this weekend.”

“There is still clear uncertainty and volatility ahead with these China negotiations…. Big Tech firms like Apple, Nvidia, Microsoft and the broader tech industry can breathe a huge sigh of relief this weekend into Monday,” Ives said in an industry note.

Beijing increased its own tariffs on US imports to 125 per cent on Friday, hitting back against Trump’s decision to further raise duties on Chinese goods and increasing the stakes in a trade war that threatens to upend global supply chains.

On Wednesday, Trump had announced a reprieve for levies on dozens of countries while ratcheting up tariffs on Chinese imports effectively to 145 per cent.

Many tech company CEOs have embraced Trump as he begins his second term, attending his January 20 inauguration and celebrating with him afterward. Apple CEO Tim Cook hosted a pre-inaugural ball and has visited Trump at his home in Florida.

White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said in a statement that Trump has made clear the US cannot rely on China to manufacture critical technologies such as semiconductors, chips, smartphones and laptops.

But she said that at Trump’s direction, major tech firms, including Apple and chipmakers Nvidia and Taiwan Semiconductor 2330.TW “are hustling to onshore their manufacturing in the United States as soon as possible.”

Tariff pain

The exemptions suggest an increasing awareness within the Trump administration of the effect of his tariffs on US consumers who are weary of inflation.

Even at a lower 54 per cent tariff rate on Chinese imports, analysts predicted the price of a top-end Apple iPhone could jump to $2,300 from $1,599. At 125 per cent, economists and analysts have said US-China trade could largely halt.

Smartphones were the top US import from China in 2024, totaling $41.7bn, while Chinese-built laptops were second, at $33.1bn, according to US Census Bureau data.

Apple recently chartered cargo flights to ferry 600 tons of iPhones, or as many as 1.5 million, to the US from India, after it stepped up production there in an effort to beat Trump’s tariffs, Reuters reported on Friday.

Trump’s White House campaign last year focused on a vow to bring down prices. But he also promised to impose the tariffs that he views as essential to realigning the world trading order and he has dismissed turbulence in financial markets and price increases from the levies as a necessary disturbance.

His so-called “reciprocal tariffs,” however, have raised fears of a US recession and have drawn criticism from some of his fellow Republicans, who do not want to lose control of Congress in next year’s mid-term elections.

Trump told reporters on Friday he was comfortable with the high tariffs on China but had a good relationship with President Xi Jinping and believed something positive would come out of the trade conflict between them.

His tariff moves have caused turmoil on financial markets. US stocks ended a volatile week higher, but the safe haven of gold hit a record high during the session and benchmark US 10-year government bond yields posted their biggest weekly increase since 2001 alongside a slump in the dollar, signaling a lack of confidence in the US.

Abu Dhabi state oil company ADNOC is in the early stages of considering a bid for investment firm Aethon Energy Management’s US natural gas assets, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Read-ADNOC Gas boosts liquidity with $2.84bn offering on ADX

ADNOC has done a string of acquisitions in gas and chemicals, which along with LNG and renewables it considers as pillars for its future growth.

Last year, the energy giant bought a stake in NextDecade’s liquefied natural gas export project in Texas along with a 20-year supply deal.

Deliberations regarding the US energy-focused investment firm’s assets also involve other parties, the source added.

Reuters in November reported that Aethon was exploring options for its natural gas production and midstream assets that included a sale or an initial public offering at a valuation of about $10bn.

The upstream assets of Aethon, which primarily focus on the Haynesville shale formation in Louisiana and East Texas, constitute one of the largest privately held US gas producers.

ADNOC and Aethon did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment.

Bloomberg News first reported that ADNOC was mulling a bid for Aethon’s natural gas assets on April 11.

The 2025 Hajj will be the last pilgrimage to take place during the intense summer heat for the next 16 years.

Read-Visa freeze: Saudi Arabia suspends entry for 14 nations

According to a report in The Express Tribune, Saudi Arabia’s National Meteorological Center has announced that the Islamic calendar is gradually shifting the annual event into cooler months.

Hajj moving into cooler seasons

Starting in 2026, the Hajj pilgrimage will move into spring and continue progressing into winter due to the Islamic lunar calendar’s annual drift of approximately 10 days.

It is expected that the pilgrimage will be held in the spring season from 2026 to 2033, and in the winter season from 2034 to 2042. The pilgrimage will return to the summer season only in 2042.

Relief for pilgrims after years of heat

The news has been welcomed by millions of pilgrims who, in recent years, have dealt with extreme heat during Hajj.

They have braved temperatures ranging between 46°C and 51°C in Makkah during the pilgrimage in 2024, according to a report by Samaa TV.

Hajj 2024: By the numbers

A total of 1,833,164 pilgrims participated in Hajj 2024. This included 221,854 internal pilgrims (12.1 per cent) and 1,611,310 external pilgrims (87.9 per cent).

Among internal pilgrims, 53.5 per cent were men and 46.5 per cent women. Among external pilgrims, 52.1 per cent were men and 47.9 per cent women.

In terms of arrival methods for external pilgrims in 2024, 96.0 per cent arrived in Makkah via air transport, 3.7 per cent by land, and 0.3 per cent by sea.

The global crypto community was shaken on February 21, as news broke of the largest crypto hack in history.

North Korea’s notorious state-sponsored hackers pulled off a monumental heist on crypto exchange, Bybit, and made off with some $1.5bn in ether (ETH). Having cut their teeth on projects such as the Sony Pictures Hack of 2014 and graduated to the big leagues with 2017’s infamous WannaCry ransomware campaign, Lazarus now poses a very real threat to exchanges across the globe, including the UAE.

The UAE has established itself as a leader in crypto regulation, fostering a secure and well-governed environment for digital assets. Its regulators oversee crypto activities to ensure compliance and transparency, while initiatives like government-backed cross-border crypto transactions with Saudi Arabia’s central bank signal a commitment to innovation. Commercial banks are also embracing the sector, with Emirates NBD launching crypto trading in March 2025.

All these positive developments have fueled the crypto market’s growth, but an unfortunate side effect of this momentum is that it has made the sector an attractive target. As global interest in crypto grows, so too does the incentive for cybercriminals to target digital assets — underscoring the need for continuous vigilance across the entire ecosystem. There’s correlation between market upswing and threats that has played out before — stolen funds last peaked during the crypto boom years of 2021-2022. And with a potential resurgence in 2024, the risk of high-profile heists is growing.

This presents a significant risk to exchanges operating in the Emirates. It is a crowded market and brand recognition is often the major draw for customers. Consequently, good press fuels success, but the wrong kind of story — even briefly — can shatter consumer confidence and erase them from relevance. Cybersecurity thrives on cautionary tales, but crypto depends on the unbreakable trust in its infrastructure. To stay ahead of digital threats, exchanges must outmatch the ingenuity of attackers — because the industry’s survival depends on it.

Call to arms for crypto exchanges

Crypto assets and services can bring many benefits to the UAE banking system. They can diversify it and rekindle enthusiasm for banking among a now largely digital-native populace. There are signs that financial organisations in the UAE, and surrounding Gulf nations, are beginning to grasp some of the truths about the crypto world. For example, far from being the shadowy, anonymised environment portrayed by its detractors, blockchains are the most auditable transaction ecosystems in existence. All that remains is for governments and institutional investors to embrace these systems.

The remaining challenges to widescale normalisation of crypto mostly hinge on wallet and exchange security. Chainalysis’ 2025 Crypto Crime Report revealed the outsized role North Korea-affiliated actors are playing in crypto-related incidents and how this role has grown. North Korean groups stole around $660m across 20 incidents in 2023. In 2024, they were responsible for more than double the previous year’s tally — $1.34bn across 47 incidents.

This level of escalation cannot go unchallenged. It falls to those who run exchanges or are exploring the possibility of offering crypto services to take steps to prevent Lazarus-type actors from disrupting or demolishing ownership guarantees. Tools already exist to help with crypto security.

Even crypto end-users have access to free resources that allow them to verify transactions and enhance their on- and off-chain security provisions.

Strengthening defences

To defend against large-scale breaches, there are some best practices exchanges and other service-providers can follow. Chainalysis has come up with these approaches through in-depth discussions with chief information security officers (CISOs). The experts strongly urge the implementation of stronger Web2 security like endpoint detection and response (EDR). Many of these tools are advanced enough in their threat intelligence to help identify and mitigate potential threats on devices used by exchange employees.

Web2 measures also include the protection of signing computers by air-gapping — disconnecting them from the internet or any internet-exposed resource. These machines should be used only for signing crypto transactions. Where a hardware node must access a cold wallet, it should be subject to the most meticulous security measures — strictly secured and access-controlled. API key storage should integrate hardware security modules (HSMs), which add another layer of authentication.

When it comes to Web3 infrastructure, there’s an imperative for a dedicated process for communication between signers to ensure all approvals account for all possible nuances and variations between the parties. In addition, multi-party computation (MPC) wallets reduce reliance on single points of failure in the management of keys. Solutions are also available to govern the wallets themselves by, for example, limiting transfer amounts.

The reals of the real-world

Humans are, of course, part of the security apparatus and are famously its most common point of failure. And while simple errors are known to lead to incidents daily, sometimes we find that an infiltration is tied to an insider voluntarily aiding a threat actor. In some documented instances, North Korean IT workers infiltrated crypto service providers and Web3 companies using fake identities.

A recent US Department of Justice (DOJ) case indicted 14 DPRK nationals who, as remote workers, stole proprietary information and extorted their employers to acquire more than $88m. Security best-practice measures must include thorough background checks for potential recruits, and the training of employees to recognize social-engineering tactics.

A wake-up call

The UAE has a glowing future in crypto adoption if providers can tackle the momentous task of securing assets and transactions. It requires commitment and constant engagement, but it is not an insurmountable challenge.

Given the right investment in the right tools and policies, UAE crypto providers can ensure they do not become the next cautionary tale.

The writer is the VP – South EMEA, Central & South Asia at Chainalysis.