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US China Trade War
President Donald Trump said Monday that he has accepted an invitation from Chinese leader Xi Jinping to visit Beijing in April and that he reciprocated by inviting Xi for a state visit to the US later next year. Trump made the announcement after he spoke with Xi by phone nearly a month after the two leaders met in person in South Korea, saying they discussed issues including Ukraine, fentanyl and purchases of American soybeans. "Our relationship with China is extremely strong!" Trump wrote in a Truth Social post. Beijing, which announced the phone call first, said nothing about the state visits but noted that the two leaders discussed trade, Taiwan and Ukraine. Xi told Trump that Taiwan's return to mainland China is "an integral part of the postwar international order," the Chinese Foreign Ministry said a crucial issue to Beijing that Trump did not mention in his post. The omissions from each side signal that sticking points remain for the two superpowers even as they highlight ..
For years, Washington has been warning others not to trust loans from Chinese state banks fuelling its rise as a superpower. But a new report reveals an ironic twist: The United States is the biggest recipient of all by far. And the security and technology implications have yet to be fully understood. China's state lenders have funnelled $200 billion into US businesses for a quarter of a century, but many of the loans have been kept secret because the money was first routed through shell companies in the Cayman Islands, Bermuda, Delaware and elsewhere that helped obscure their origins, according to AidData, a research lab at the College of William & Mary in Virginia. More alarming, much of the lending was to help Chinese companies buy stakes in US businesses, many tied to critical technology and national security, including a robotics maker, a semiconductor company and a biotech firm. The report found a far more widespread and sophisticated lending network than previously thought
China said Monday it is making good on its pledge to crack down on chemicals that can be used to make fentanyl, a key issue for President Donald Trump during recent talks with Chinese leader Xi Jinping as they aimed to take steps to ease a trade war. Beijing announced new export restrictions on 13 drug-making chemicals to the United States, Canada and Mexico, including those that are used to produce the synthetic opioid blamed for tens of thousands of overdose deaths in the U.S. every year. After meeting Xi in South Korea last month, Trump said China would help end the fentanyl crisis and he would ease a related tariff from 20 per cent to 10 per cent. It shows the back-and-forth nature of U.S.-Chinese cooperation on fentanyl over the years and lessens the recent tensions after Trump launched his campaign of tariffs, including those against the country that is the top exporter of pharmaceutical ingredients, such as the chemicals used to make fentanyl. What the Trump administration ha
Leaders of 21 Asian and Pacific Rim nations opened their annual summit Friday to discuss how to promote economic cooperation and tackle shared challenges, a day after President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed to take steps to ease their escalating trade war. This year's two-day Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in the South Korean city of Gyeongju has been heavily overshadowed by Thursday's Trump-Xi meeting. Trump described the meeting as a roaring success, saying he would cut tariffs on China, while Beijing had agreed to allow the export of rare earth elements and start buying American soybeans. Their deals were a relief to the world economy, as experts previously warned that a failure to dial down trade tensions between the world's two largest economies were certain to deepen global economic uncertainties. Established in 1989 during a period of increased globalisation, APEC represents more than half of global trade. The forum champions free and open t
China's promise to delay its newest restrictions on the export of the rare earths that are crucial to many high-tech products for one year as part of a trade agreement President Donald Trump secured creates an opportunity for the US and its allies to bolster their own production and processing capabilities. But it will be hard to undercut China's stranglehold on the market. The restrictions China imposed on rare earths this year have been a key issue in the trade talks between Beijing and Washington. Trump responded angrily to China's latest rules with a threat to impose an additional 100% tariff on all Chinese imports, but he has since dropped that demand as part of this agreement. This week's deal will delay the regulations that would have required foreign companies to get special approval to export items that contain even small traces of rare earths elements sourced from China even if those products were made elsewhere by foreign companies, but it doesn't eliminate restrictions ..