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Malaysia has rejected an offer to host the 2026 Commonwealth Games – putting it at risk of being cancelled for the first time since the Second World War.

Officials said the Commonwealth Games Federation’s (CGF) offer of £100m in funding was insufficient and they had not been left with enough time to plan.

Malaysia, which hosted the 1998 games, had agreed to step in after the Australian state of Victoria withdrew as hosts for similar reasons in July last year.

Malaysian government spokesperson Fahmi Fadzil said on Friday: “If we had a longer time, we would definitely do it, but because there’s such a short time, we definitely can’t do it.

“When we assessed the viability of hosting the Games, the length of time needed and the cost was seen to be particularly prohibitive.”

The Games, contested by around 70 countries and territories that used to belong to the British Empire, has struggled to find a host in recent years.

Its past six editions have been held in either the UK or Australia.

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Birmingham hosted the last tournament in 2022 but had originally been due to host in 2026.

It offered to move its turn when South Africa was stripped of hosting rights due to a lack of progress shown in its preparations.

This left the CGF scrambling to find a new location, with Victoria the then-only viable option after several other cities pulled out of the bidding process over cost concerns.

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Questions have also been repeatedly raised over the relevance of a tournament with such colonial origins.

The CGF has not commented on Malaysia’s withdrawal.

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A conversation with historian Sir Niall Ferguson on Trump, tariffs and China

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A conversation with historian Sir Niall Ferguson on Trump, tariffs and China

👉Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim on your podcast app👈

Richard and Yalda are joined by one of the world’s most eminent historians and political commentators to discuss culture wars, trade wars, and the possibility of World War Three over Taiwan.

Sir Niall says the US may be in the stage of “buyer’s remorse” with the Trump presidency, and predicts that by this time next year, he could be “deeply underwater” in the polls.

To get in touch or to share questions for Richard and Yalda, email theworld@sky.uk

Click here to visit their YouTube channel where you can watch all the episodes.

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Episodes of The World With Richard Engel And Yalda Hakim will be available every Wednesday on all podcast platforms.

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In the idyllic Cognac region of southern France, Trump’s tariffs threaten a centuries-old way of life

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In the idyllic Cognac region of southern France, Trump's tariffs threaten a centuries-old way of life

The impact of Trump’s tariffs is reaching deep into every economy.

We travelled into the French rural heartland, heading for Cognac – the home of French brandy.

It is only half the size of Surrey but its exports to America are worth €1bn a year and that trade is now severely threatened.

The first buds are out on the vines of Amy Pasquet’s vineyard.

An American, she has married into the industry and with her French husband owns JLP Cognac.

She knows more than most the bond brandy has formed between their two countries that goes back to the war.

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Ms Pasquet said: “A lot of the African-American soldiers had really loved their experience here and had brought back the cognac. And I think that stayed because this African-American community truly is a community and they want to drink like their grandfather did.”

The ties remain with rappers like Jay Z’s love for cognac.

However, Ms Pasquet adds: “There’s also this other community of people who have been drinking bourbon for a long time, love bourbon, but find the prices just outrageous today. So they want to try something different.”

Amy Pasquet owns JLP Cognac with her husband
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Amy Pasquet owns JLP Cognac with her husband

JLP’s products were served at New York’s prestigious Met Gala.

They were preparing to launch new product lines in the US. But now that’s in doubt.

It is hard being an American in France now, Ms Pasquet says.

Her French neighbours are appalled by what US President Donald Trump is doing.

She continues: “They’re like, okay, America’s forgotten how close France and America are as far as (their) relationship is concerned. And I think that’s hurtful on both sides. I think it’s important to remember that the US is many things, and not just this one person, and there are millions of inhabitants that didn’t vote for him.”

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A fresh challenge for a centuries-old tradition

Making cognac takes years, using techniques that go back centuries. In another vineyard we met Pierre Louis Giboin whose family have been doing it for more than 200 years.

In a cellar dating back to the French Revolution, barrels of oak sit under thick cobwebs, ageing the brandy.

The walls are lined with a unique black mould that thrives off the vapours of cognac.

They have seen threats come and go over those centuries, wars, weather, pestilence. But never from a country they regard as one of their oldest allies and best of customers.

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Pierre Louis Giboin's family has been making cognac for centuries
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Pierre Louis Giboin’s cellar dates back to the French revolution

Mr Trump’s tariffs, says Mr Giboin, now threaten a way of life.

“It’s at the end of like very good times in the Cognac region. It’s been like 10 years when everything’s been perfect, we have good harvest, we sell really easily all the stock, but now I mean it’s the end.”

Ms Pasquet and Mr Giboin are unusual.

Most cognac makers sell their produce through the drink’s four big houses, Hennessy, Remy Martin, Martell and Courvoisier.

Some have been told the amounts they can sell have been drastically reduced.

Independents though like them must find new markets if the tariff threat persists.

Confusion away from the chaos

Outside in the dappled light of a Cognac evening Mr Giboin and I toast glasses of pineau – the diluted form of cognac drunk as an aperitif.

In this idyllic corner of France, a world away from Washington, Mr Trump’s trade war on Europe simply makes no sense.

“He’s like angry against the whole world and the way he talks like that Europe the EU was made against the US to cheat on the US. It’s just crazy to think like this,” Mr Giboin says.

It’s not just what Mr Trump’s done. It’s how Europe now strikes back that concerns the French. And it’s not just in Cognac where they’re concerned

France exports more than €2bn worth of wine to America.

In the heart of the Bordeaux wine region, Sylvie Courselle’s family have been making wine since the 1940s at their Chateau Thieuley vineyard.

It’s bottling season but they can’t prepare the wine headed for America while everything is up in the air.

Showing me the unused reels of US labels for her wine she told me she was losing sleep over the uncertainty.

Later she was meeting with her American distributors.

Gerry Keogh sells Ms Courselle’s wine across the US.

He says the entire industry is reeling

Sylvie Courselle with distributers
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Sylvie Courselle with distributers

The Chateau Thieuley vineyard in the Bordeaux wine region
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The Chateau Thieuley vineyard in the Bordeaux wine region

“I think it’s like anything. You don’t really believe it’s happening. And even when you’re in the midst of it, it was kind of like 9/11.

“You’re like… This is actually happening. It’s unbelievable. And when you start seeing the repercussions from the stock market, et cetera, and how it’s impacting every level, it’s quite shocking.”

They know the crisis is far from over and could now escalate.

“We feel stuck in the middle of this commercial war and we don’t have the weapons to fight, I think,” Ms Courselle said.

It is, she says, very stressful.

Jerry Keogh
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Gerry Keogh

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The histories of America and France have been intertwined for centuries through revolutions against tyranny and two wars fighting for liberty.

America used to call France its oldest ally, but under Donald Trump its now seen here as turning on France and the rest of Europe in a reckless and unjustified trade war.

It is all doing enormous harm to relations between the US and its European allies.

How Europe now decides to retaliate will help determine the extent of that damage.

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Donald Trump’s 104% tariffs on China – and other levies on ‘worst offenders’ – in effect this morning

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Donald Trump's 104% tariffs on China - and other levies on 'worst offenders' - in effect this morning

Donald Trump’s trade tariffs on what he calls “the worst offenders” come into effect at 5am UK time, with China facing by far the biggest levy.

The US will hit Chinese imports with 104% tariffs, marking a significant trade escalation between the world’s two largest superpowers.

At a briefing on Tuesday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Donald Trump “believes that China wants to make a deal with the US,” before saying: “It was a mistake for China to retaliate.

“When America is punched, he punches back harder.”

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White House announces 104% tariff on China

After Mr Trump announced sweeping levies last week – hitting some imported goods from China with 34% tariffs – Beijing officials responded with like-for-like measures.

The US president then piled on an extra 50% levy on China, taking the total to 104% unless it withdrew its retaliatory 34% tariff.

China’s commerce ministry said in turn that it would “fight to the end”, and its foreign ministry accused the US of “economic bullying” and “destabilising” the world’s economies.

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‘Worst offender’ tariffs also in effect

Alongside China’s 104% tariff, roughly 60 countries – dubbed by the US president as the “worst offenders” – will also see levies come into effect today.

The EU will be hit with 20% tariffs, while countries like Vietnam and Cambodia see a 46% levy and 49% rate respectively.

The UK was not included on this list, and instead saw a “baseline”, worldwide 10% tariff on imported goods in effect from last Saturday.

At the weekend, Sir Keir Starmer promised the government was ready to “shelter British businesses from the storm”.

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What’s going on with the US and China?

Since the tariffs were announced last Wednesday, global stock markets have plummeted, with four days of steep losses for all three of the US’ major indexes.

As trading closed on Tuesday evening, the S&P 500 lost 1.49%, the Nasdaq Composite fell 2.15%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 0.84%.

According to LSEG data, S&P 500 companies have lost $5.8tn (£4.5tn) in stock market value since last Wednesday, the deepest four-day loss since the benchmark was created in the 1950s.

New York Stock Exchange on 8 April 2025. Pic: AP
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Global stock markets have been reeling since Trump’s tariff announcement last week. Pic: AP

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Trump signs coal orders

Meanwhile, the US president signed four executive orders to boost American coal mining and production.

The directives order:
• keeping some coal plants that were set for retirement open;
• directing the interior secretary to “acknowledge the end” of an Obama-era moratorium that paused coal leasing on federal lands;
• requiring federal agencies to rescind policies transitioning the US away from coal production, and;
• directing the Department of Energy and other federal agencies to assess how coal energy can meet rising demand from artificial intelligence.

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At a White House ceremony, Mr Trump said the orders end his predecessor Joe Biden’s “war on beautiful clean coal,” and miners “will be put back to work”.

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