this is business live from bbc news with ben thompson and sally bundock. more trade backlash against america, as mexico imposes nearly $3 billion worth of tariffs on us products. live from london, that's our top story on wednesday the 6th ofjune. the mexican government has followed through on a threat to retaliate against president trump's trade policies, slapping import taxes on products such as cheese, pork and bourbon. also in the programme, as italy's new government outlines its revolutionary policies, should europe be scared of the country's new populist agenda? this is how the markets are looking. we will explain why the arrows are all green. and how do you grow a new business?

we meet the firm selling plants to people without green fingers. and they're doing it all online. elon musk remains as chairman and ceo of the company. is that too much control or is it necessary for a pioneering company such as tesla? let us know. just use the hashtag bbcbizlive. send us your views on that. a lot of you getting in touch with us already. we start in mexico, where the government there has announced new tariffs on us products in response to donald trump's decision to impose steep duties on imports of steel and aluminium. mexico will put tariffs of around $3 billion on imports of whisky, cheese, steel, bourbon, and pork. the central american country is the largest market for us pork exporters. so it will hit them hard.

the trump administration last week levied tariffs of 25% on steel and 10% on aluminium imports from mexico, canada and the european union, angering key us allies. the move comes amid fraught attempts to renegotiate the trillion—dollar north american free trade agreement. known as nafta. the agreement governs trade between the us, canada and mexico. us—mexico trade is worth about $600 billion annually and about 16% of us goods go to its southern neighbour. meanwhile, mexico sells about 80% of its exports to the us. with me is our economics correspondent andrew walker. it sounds like mexico has delivered on something it said it would do about a week ago. exactly, we were told to expect this and now they are

doing it. so we have a 25% tariffs on imports on various types of steel. a0 different types from the united states. 20% on various pork products like shoulder, leg and hands. 20% on other agricultural goods including apples, potatoes, cranberries and parmesan. and significant and lower tariffs on various light fixtures, motorboats, between ten and 15%, various types of metalfurniture. and between ten and 15%, various types of metal furniture. and another 25% on bourbon whiskey. it's quite a wide range of goods and those are some pretty stinging tariff rates on some pretty stinging tariff rates on some of those goods. a wide-ranging set of products and some hefty ta riffs set of products and some hefty tariffs in place. it's done in a political manner and we have had a busy 2a hours with seven primary is going on, the busiest day since the election. it's very significant and

it's not just about targeting the retaliation politically, but there isa retaliation politically, but there is a strong element in that. if you look at pork, for example, that is particularly relevant in iowa where there is a republican candidate who some regard as being a vulnerable in the forthcoming mid—term congressional elections in november. and the steel industry is particularly relevant to vice president mike pence's home state of indiana. so there seems to be premeditation in trying to make president trump suffer politically. and where our negotiations going with the north american free trade agreement? another complication in the issue. mexico and canada initially got exceptions from the steel and aluminium tariffs, partly because their status as part of the north american free trade agreement and the ongoing negotiations you mentioned. there is no question this casts a major cloud over the

negotiations but another issue raising its head in the last couple of days is that president trump apparently, according to his advisers, would now prefer to conduct those negotiations as two separate tracts, one with canada and one with mexico, to try to come to different agreements, and that is something both countries regard as a path they do not want to go down. thank you for clarifying that latest element, chapter, in this saga that is the world war. we'll keep you right across it as it goes on and on. let's take a look at some of the other stories making the news. a computerfailure at the uk bank tsb that caused up to 1.9 million people to lose access to online banking services is being investigated by the financial regulator. the introduction of a new it system in april left customers struggling to make transactions and see their balances. some tsb customers are still facing problems with services. tributes are being paid to the american designer

and businesswoman kate spade, who's been found dead at her home in new york. police said they were investigating her death, at 55, as an apparent suicide. the designer is survived by her husband, andy spade, and their teenage daughter, frances beatrix. entrepeneur elon musk has survived a bid to reform the management board at tesla. 0ne investor wanted to strip the tesla founder and chief executive of his other role — as chairman. meanwhile the company also announced that its newest "gigafactory" — or giant lithium—ion battery plant — would be built in shanghai. the financial times reports investors who backed a rebranding of cambridge analytica are in a stand—off with former chief executive alexander nix — after he allegedly withdrew $8 million from the scandal—hit data firm before it collapsed. the paper said mr nix did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

years before a parliamentary select committee today so will doubtless be probed on it again. —— he is before a parliamentary select committee today. now let's turn to europe, where italy's new anti—establishment government has won its first confidence vote in the country's senate, outlining its policies. a vote later today in the chamber of deputies, where the five star movement have a majority could turn these plans into reality. so what could they involve? well, prime minister giuseppe conte has pledged to cut public debt by boosting the economy, not through austerity cuts. the coalition says it wants to help italy's poorest — increasing public spending on welfare and infrastructure, while introducing a flat tax of 15% on individuals and 20% on companies but the turbulent political climate has taken its toll — a key business confidence index, which covers manufacturing, services and retail, fell in may to the lowest

level sincejuly 2016. meanwhile, the government's long—term borrowing costs almost doubled in may, to a rate seven times higher than germany's. with me is greg swenson, a partner at brigg macadam limited. good to see you. clearly there are a lot of challenges for italy, but the people voted for change. is this not what they are getting. they expect to change, and basically it, even though the two parties have many differences, one is the populist from the right and one is populist from the right and one is populist from the right and one is populist from the left, they do have a lot of similarities and they did basically get elected because of the voters rejecting the status quo. so that is classic populism. populism in a sense of, we will not cut anything, and we will spend our way out of the crisis. it's something we have heard

quite a lot of from leaders around the world but it doesn't always work. know, and there is a difference between getting elected and governing. we saw that in united states as well with trump, he has never indicated that he pays attention to the deficit. he hasn't really addressed any sort of reform to entitlements, which is a huge issue in the us. so the italians have done the same thing. they don't wa nt to have done the same thing. they don't want to cut benefits because they don't win elections by announcing they are cutting benefits. so hopefully they will govern with a different philosophy and campaigning. because they do have a major debt problems. they do have a major debt problems. they do have a major debt problems. they do have a major debt problem, but in the short term can they introduce these measures? the policy promises could well become a reality as they got the confidence vote yesterday. we're looking at elements coming into law and coming into effect. will there bea and coming into effect. will there be a short—term boost to the italian economy from this, new benefits and

less tax ? economy from this, new benefits and less tax? i hope so. i would never suggest spending your way out of recession is possible, nor do i think taxing your way out of recession is possible. so the fact they are advocating pro growth policies is fantastic. if they don't wa nt to policies is fantastic. if they don't want to touch benefits right now, maybe that's ok and maybe they can address them later. the debt is 130% of gdp, but the actual budget deficit is lower than france right now so deficit is lower than france right now so they have some wiggle room. we hope to see they get a bounce in the near term, the policies work and they unleashed the economy, that's what i would hope for. thanks very much, we'll see if you are right. facebook is in hot water again, this time in china. the social media firm has confirmed it had data—sharing partnerships with four chinese firms, including huawei. that's been flagged as a security threat by us authorities. facebook has been blocked in china since 2009, but the company has been trying

to find other ways to access the massive potential market. monica miller is in singapore. not great headlines for facebook once again. no you took the words out of my mouth, they are in hot water once again. they are saying this data was used to build a facebook experiences on these platforms, using users' data in order to build. 0riginally platforms, using users' data in order to build. originally the new york times reported that roughly 60 device makers had access to this. at least four companies mentioned, including huawei, lenovo and lct. they said they were aware of the terms from the get go, but the information that was reportedly stored on servers by these companies abroad, they say they were always stored on device themselves, so facebook now has to answer to many

angry friends as to what is happening with their data. again, one way for the company to make him in road that has been pushed out of the mainland market. this isjust another way to maybe bypass into this massive market of software users and hopefully gain more friends there on the mainland. users and hopefully gain more friends there on the mainlandm really does highlight the difficulties for firms like that, given all the attention now on data sharing and what they do with our data. monica in miller in singapore, thank you. tech stocks were responsible for a boost to wall street yesterday with netflix and amazon up more than i%, helping the nasdaq to a record high. it's the second straight session where tech stocks have been in the spotlight. tokyo stocks ending slightly higher helped by a cheaper yen, despite the ongoing concerns over a global trade war and — as we've talked about — that political turbulence in europe. slightly higher start to europe, again despite that

political uncertainty. here's how it's looking. more on that in a moment, but first paul blake has the details about what's ahead on wall street today. one of donald trump's favourite topics is likely to be back in the news — the us trade deficit. we will see the release of figures for the month of april, which are expected to show the monthly trade deficit holding steady at about $a9 billion. most economists would tell you that figure is largely irrelevant to the health of the american economy. however, the trump administration has seized on it as a key metric forjudging other countries' relationships with the united states. indeed, donald trump has cited it as one of the reasons he has focused on renegotiating the united states' trade positions around the world. market watchers will be looking to see how it factors into the ongoing tensions with the eu over trade tariffs, as well as if it will factor into the ongoing debate with canada and mexico over the north american free trade agreement. joining us is trevor greetham,

head of multi—asset at royal london asset management. there is so much going on but markets are quiet right now. and the sun and others doing really well in the tech stocks, and that is filtering through to asia. —— hammers on and others doing really well. —— amazon and others. hammers on and others doing really well. -- amazon and others. what's happening is global growth is starting to cool down. but america is still absolutely booming. the reason is, donald trump has cut taxes and decreased spending very late on in the business cycle, so in america we see lots of evidence of very high optimism among ceos, with lots of hiring and the beginnings of a proper capital spending boom in

america. that's why you see tech stocks doing really well and nasdaq hitting highs. europe has put your problems and economic indicators are slowing in europe. china is also slowing in europe. china is also slowing down. we talked about the trade war and both sides are ratcheting up rhetoric. do investors ca re ratcheting up rhetoric. do investors care much about that because clearly we have seen a direct impact on cutting taxes. they care when it comes to individual companies. what is going on is when the world economy starts to slow down, even though america is still doing well, stock markets get a bounce of volatility and people do not know what to blame it on and to an extent, trade wars, problems with facebook, have been blamed for big market declines but it is a soggy summer market declines but it is a soggy summer because things are cooling off. i am hoping for a barbecue summer. trevor will be back. not if he is

going to tell us about a soggy summer! still to come... growing a new business. how selling plants to people without green fingers — is big business for this london startup. you're with business live from bbc news. now, results are in for wh smith this morning. it's reported a i% increase in like—for—like sales for the third quarter. the firm's travel business grew 3% as well, but its high street business fell i%. it comes as wh smith was recently voted the worst shop on the high street by which? that is harsh. the retail giant was ranked poorly for both customer service and value for money by more than 10,000 customers. it is the dodgy carpets. but have a twitter account! patrick 0'brien, uk retail research director at globaldata.

not a huge surprise. we are forced to buy expensive chocolate and magazines at the airport and railway stations but the high street is struggling. we are used to seeing the travel business doing well but not as well as expected. like the light only up 3% this time but the high street, bat has been falling 5-796 high street, bat has been falling 5-7% in high street, bat has been falling 5—7% in recent quarters and this quarter, —1% and in the current climate that is not bad. why is it still doing not bad on the high street, given the fact that which said it was the worst shop. i remember when years ago, when tesco and sainsbury started to stock books and sainsbury started to stock books and cds, we said wh smith will have to shut. wh smith in the high street is taking a profit focused strategy

and it means it is not investing in stores, but really mindful of making those stores work in terms of profitability and that is down to the flexible format hit house, which it needs when you think of the categories it plays in, which are under pressure, news and magazines, those falling. —— format it has. stationery is hit by discount businesses like card factory. it has been pushing flexibility to ensure those stores remain profitable. its leases, the majority are two up to five years, so it does not feel it has the forward looks to invest heavily. thank you very much. stephen clarke talking about whsmith results. more online. mexico has

followed through with the promise and is imposing almost three billion dollars of tariffs on us products. if you live in a city centre, chances are you don't have a garden, but what if you are craving green space amid pollution and busy nests in city centres. well, one london startup says it has the answer. it doesn't need big garden centres, and you don't even need much knowledge about plants — and it says it can make your home greener, at the click of a mouse. last year, the global gardening and outdoor market was worth $32 billion. in the uk alone, sales of garden plants and equipment hit $5.35 billion last year. 0ne company trying to tap into the market is patch.

it's an online plant firm founded in december 2015. i caught up with the founders, freddie blackett and ed barrow and asked them how they came up with the idea. yeah, so we help people discover, buy and look after the right plants for their space. it came from my own experience of the market. when i moved in with my girlfriend around five years ago now, i found it really, really difficult to try to plant up the space that was there for me to plant up. there was a complete lack of retailers in the market, either online or offline. and also so little information for someone with no experience, as i had then, of plants, and which ones to choose and then how to look after them. how difficult or easy has it been to be a new business in london? what sort of help did you get, and did it help being in london? as i said, i had no experience of plants, so i needed to build a passion for it. i went away and learnt a bit more. killed fewer plants than have survived, which i think is the ratio

you want to come outwith. and then i looked to seek some, get some, capital. so, some next—level investments. i felt there was, to your point, such a great opportunity in this market, that there were going to be loads of other people looking to exploit it. so i raised some investment from a venture capital fund in east london and got started from that point. you very much split how you run the business. you look after logistics, getting the things in. and you look at selling them to customers. how does that divide the work? well, we deal directly with holland now, so we are on quite a lot of the supply chain, so we operate quite a lot of the supply chain. so there is lots of complexity there in terms of getting the right orders communicated to the right people at the right time. and then making sure that the deliveries are on time and when customers expect is to make them. so there are a lot of complexities that we are across. but we have around 16 or 17 months operating experience now,

so you can see the customer satisfaction is increasing, and we are making less mistakes as we have scaled. what's been the biggest challenge of growing so quickly? all of the invoices we receive from our original suppliers were paper— based. they didn't do digital receipts. that gives you a measure of how old—fashioned it was in some respects. but then you go to holland and meet some of the suppliers there, we went to an orchid farm that is operated almost totally by robots. so, it's quite an interesting industry to be operating in. you are selling to people who don't have much knowledge of plants. maybe they don't have much time. that must throw up some challenges as well. there is certainly a convenience, part of our offering. but also we are trying to add more value to the experience that people would get from buying their plans from the garden centre. so we offer a great after seo experience, after sale experience, so you have lifetime access to our plant experts should anything go wrong with your plants. get in touch and get a query solved quite quickly. also, we send people on a plant

parenting course, as we call it. so the first ten days after your plants have arrived, you get, every day, you get a titbit of information, so you know have to look after, at least the basics of how to look after your plants. and content, especially after you have received your plants, is a big part of the problem we are trying to solve, which, like i mentioned, it's not about getting plans to people, but also helping to equip them with all the knowledge they need to be able to become gardeners, or maybe, in slightly more 21st—century language, plant parents. so, you rely on a pretty slick operation to get things from holland to the uk quickly and then get them out to your customers. brexit must figure in this for you. are you worried? from an operations perspective, it's just the time it will take products to clear customs. we have spoken to some of the people who have been in the industry a long time who remember before the customs union, and they said it wasn't too much of a hindrance, things would be pre—cleared.

but obviously any changes to how we trade with europe will impact our ability to turn products around quickly. we can talk about a billionaire boss ifind we can talk about a billionaire boss i find fascinating. i we can talk about a billionaire boss ifind fascinating. i do not mean trevor, who is back as promised. i mean elon musk, chief executive and chairman of tesla. despite the effo rts chairman of tesla. despite the efforts for an investor to take away one of those roles. our conference had tesla as a poster child of not —— what not to do. having the combined post gives him massive power. he has family members on the board and they lend money and give

money to family linked companies. pays himself huge amounts of money. there is little scrutiny. is he not a one—off in terms of his brains, intelligence, vision for the company, he is a maverick? but there isa company, he is a maverick? but there is a bubble mentality around him because if you give your company cheap capital, they can do amazing things with it but the problem is he has great ideas but there is a delivery problem making cars on time. more governments would be a good thing. a lot of you getting in touch about this story peter says considering the way he stormed out of the meeting because he cannot be handling questions about his company and profits. another said it also represents insecurity of tesla. interesting. goodbye. hello, we have more in the way of

sunshine to go round today compared with yesterday but it has been a cold start to the day. cold enough even for patches of frost in the highlands of scotland but more typically temperatures hovering around 6—7d across town ‘s this morning in england, scotland and parts of wales. in the east cloud movie in overnight. low—pressure will keep cloud feeding in across eastern areas of england. showers will clear south—west england. a lot of dry weather today, although showers possible in the channel islands and maybe later towards the south coast of england. showers in western counties of northern ireland and western scotland but the most a dry day. cloud loitering from northumberland down to lincolnshire. this evening and overnight cloud

will spread inland. across parts of eastern scotland, eastern england. a greater threat of showers moving into southern counties of england towards the end of the night. those showers are associated with an area of low pressure sat across the near continent to the south. with the weather front pushing closer into southern england, that brings the risk of showers across the south as we head into thursday. showers possible across southern counties. there should be brighter spells. eastern england and scotland cloudy but that cloud will melt away. probably more sunshine in eastern areas but the best of the sunshine in north—west parts of the country. by in north—west parts of the country. by friday, more in the way of cloud forming across the north sea and moving inland so many start cloudy but there will be breaks in the cloud and the best of these in the

north—west of the uk. thick enough still for showers across wales perhaps and perhaps southern england. into the weekend, it looks like there will be cloud around at times but some sunny spells and the best in the north—west. some showers to come. they will be heavy and targets southern england and parts of wales. hello, it's wednesday, it's nine o'clock, i'm victoria derbyshire, welcome to the programme. were you one of the nearly 2 million tsb customers who were affected by those it problems? the financial watchdog is now going to investigate what went wrong, and the head of tsb will be back is back in front of mps again today. can he do better than last time? the percentage that are logging in successfully is 95%. of course, 5% of customers are not logging in, and that is often the case for any bank. let us know if you are still having problems with tsb‘s banking services. also, i've been to meet two women

who recently wrote to us to say that watching a programme i took part in called the real full monty — that encouraged women to check their breasts — led them to doing just that.