Gold and silver prices dived Friday and European stock markets ended the week up while Wall Street pulled back with investors reassured by U.S. President Donald Trump's pick to take over as head of the Federal Reserve.

U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer arrived in the Chinese financial center of Shanghai on Friday in his bid to boost business opportunities for British firms in the world's second-largest economy, just hours after U.S. President Donald Trump signaled a possible opposition to any deal between Beijing and London.

Starmer, the center-left Labour leader, has brought more than 50 business leaders on his trip to China, the first by a U.K. prime minister in eight years.

The European economy recorded modest growth at the end of last year, pushing past turmoil over higher U.S. tariffs. But now the economy faces another hurdle: a stronger euro against the dollar that could weigh on exports.

Growth in the 21 countries that use the shared euro currency came in at 0.3% for the last three months of 2025, matching the figure from the third quarter, the EU statistics agency Eurostat reported Friday. Growth compared with the fourth quarter of 2024 was 1.3%.

Venezuela's acting President Delcy Rodríguez has signed a law that opens the nation's oil sector to privatization, reversing a tenet of the self-proclaimed socialist movement that has ruled the country for more than two decades.

The reform will undoubtedly be her government's signature policy as it positions the oil sector – Venezuela's engine – to lure the foreign investment needed to revamp a long-crippled industry. Rodríguez enacted the measure less than a month after the brazen seizure of then-President Nicolás Maduro in a U.S. military attack in Venezuela's capital, Caracas.

President Donald Trump has signed an executive order that would impose a tariff on any goods from countries that sell or provide oil to Cuba, a move that could further cripple an island plagued by a deepening energy crisis.

Stability. Consistency. Ever-changing complexity.

With language like that, deployed in separate meetings in three Asian capitals this week, government leaders forged closer ties driven in part by a figure halfway around the world: the president of the United States. And much of the time, they didn't even mention Donald Trump's name.

Gold prices soared to a fresh record near $5,600 on Thursday, while oil rallied after Donald Trump ramped up geopolitical tensions with his threatened military strike on Iran.

The surge in safe-haven precious metals also saw silver hit another peak and has been helped by a softer dollar sparked by speculation that the U.S. president is happy to see the world's reserve currency weaken.

Vietnam and the European Union on Thursday upgraded ties to a comprehensive strategic partnership, Vietnam's highest diplomatic level, as both recalibrate trade amid disruptions to global finance driven by U.S. tariff pressure.

The upgrade places the EU on the same diplomatic footing as the United States, China and Russia and was announced during a visit to Hanoi by European Council President António Costa.

The leaders of Britain and China called Thursday for a "comprehensive strategic partnership" to deepen ties between their nations at a time of growing global uncertainty.

Neither publicly mentioned Donald Trump, but the American president's challenges to the post-Cold War order was clearly on their minds.

The European Union on Thursday announced sanctions on 15 Iranian officials, including top commanders and officials of the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, over Tehran's deadly crackdown on nationwide protests.

Six Iranian organizations, including bodies responsible for monitoring online content in Iran, were also included in the sanctions list.