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China says its exports to the US have plummeted ahead of trade talks

Euronews

2 hours ago

Euronews

China says its exports to the US have plummeted ahead of trade talks

Shares in chip designer Alphawave rose sharply on Monday after the British-Canadian firm agreed to be acquired by US rival Qualcomm for around $2.4bn (€2.1bn) in cash. As of around 9.45am London time, Alphawave's stock had risen around 23% in daily trading on the LSE. Qualcomm's offer values each share at 183p, a 96% premium on the closing price seen on 31 March, the final day before Qualcomm and Alphawave announced they were holding discussions. The $2.4bn valuation is still half of the total worth attributed to Alphawave when it launched an IPO in 2021. At its stock market debut, Alphawave shares were worth 410p each and the group was valued at £3.1bn (€2.7bn), although the firm has generally traded well below this level since its IPO. The deal is expected to close in the first three months of 2026, subject to shareholder and regulatory approval. Alphawave designs semiconductor technology for data centres and AI applications, thus providing Qualcomm with an opportunity to diversify away from smartphone components. 'Qualcomm's acquisition of Alphawave Semi represents a significant milestone for us and an opportunity for our business to join forces with a respected industry leader and drive value to our customers,' said Tony Pialis, CEO of Alphawave Semi. 'By combining our resources and expertise, we will be well-positioned to expand our product offerings, reach a broader customer base, and enhance our technological capabilities,' he added. Cristiano Amon, CEO of Qualcomm, commented on the deal: 'The combined teams share the goal of building advanced technology solutions and enabling next-level connected computing performance across a wide array of high growth areas, including data center infrastructure.' Alphawave said its directors would unanimously advise shareholders to vote in favour of the takeover. For the deal to go ahead, it would require a green light from investors representing 75% of shares. The takeover raises concerns about the attractiveness of listing in the UK, particularly after other high-profile departures from the LSE. Food-delivery service Deliveroo and cybersecurity and AI firm Darktrace have both agreed to be acquired by US firms. The fintech Wise also announced last week that it would be moving its primary listing to the US. China's exports rose 4.8% in May from a year earlier, according to data released on Monday just hours ahead of another round of trade talks between the US and China. The total was a bit lower than expected, as shipments to the United States fell 34.5% in the same time period. Imports declined 3.4% year-on-year, leaving a trade surplus of $103.2bn (€90.33bn). China exported $28.8bn to the United States in May (compared to $44 billion last year), while its imports from the US fell 7.4% to $10.8bn, the report said. Still, exports to Southeast Asia and the European Union remained robust, growing 14.8% and 12% year-on-year. 'The acceleration of exports to other economies has helped China's exports remain relatively buoyant in the face of the trade war,' Lynne Song of ING Economics said in a commentary. Still, trade slowed in May from an 8.1% jump in China's global exports in April. Many businesses had rushed orders to try to beat higher tariffs, even as some new import duties took effect or remained in place. Exports will likely rebound somewhat in June thanks to a 90-day suspension of most of the tariffs China and the US imposed on each other in their escalating trade war. 'But with tariffs likely to remain elevated and Chinese manufacturers facing broader constraints on their ability to sustain rapid gains in global market share, we think export growth will slow further by year-end,' Zichun Huang of Capital Economics said in a report. Despite the tariffs truce, the rancour between Beijing and Washington has persisted, with angry exchanges over advanced semiconductors, 'rare earths' that are vital to many industries, and visas for Chinese students at American universities. The next round of negotiations is due to take place on Monday in London, following a phone call last week between Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping. Other figures released on Monday highlight how slowing exports are impacting the world's second largest economy, since China imports many of the components and materials needed for the goods it assembles for the world. At the same time, China's own domestic markets are suffering. The government reported that consumer prices fell 0.1% in May, pointing to sluggish demand. The persisting deflation partly reflects lower food prices, economists said. Producer price deflation was worse, contracting 3.3% in May, its lowest level in almost two years, after falling 2.7% in April. Salaries vary widely across sectors and professions in Europe. While a number of jobs are disappearing, new ones are also emerging. Some roles, like those in healthcare, continue to be essential. So, which sectors offer the highest pay in Europe? And what are the top-earning jobs? Exploring these questions can help when choosing a career — though salary may not be the main driver for everyone. Euronews Business analyses the highest-paying roles in Europe, using data shared by the global hiring platform Indeed with our journalists. The analysis covers four countries (the UK, Germany, France and the Netherlands) and the salary data reflects annual earnings from May 2024 to April 2025. The occupation 'physicians and surgeons' is excluded from the main dataset, prompting a separate analysis. Medical consultants, radiologists, medical directors, orthodontists, and dentists are consistently among the highest-paid roles across all countries. These jobs appear in categories including: medical technician, medical information, nursing, and dental. This is especially true in the UK, where nearly half of the top 20 highest-paying jobs fall under these brackets. In France, three of the top four highest-paying jobs are also in these categories — particularly dental roles. Titles such as managing director, director of strategy, project director, and director of technology are well compensated across countries. These positions are found in sectors like sales, banking and finance, technology, and general management, indicating that leadership roles tend to carry premium compensation in many industries. Roles in software development, information design and documentation, and IT operations — like software engineer, data engineer, and SAP consultant — are well-paid, particularly in Germany and the Netherlands. While entry-level sales roles are less lucrative, senior roles like sales director, head of sales, and enterprise account executive show high earning potential. These roles often come with large pay packages in Germany and the Netherlands, where experienced sales professionals can earn salaries comparable to those seen in tech or management roles. Positions like tax director, labour law attorney (or an employment solicitor), and financial controller are consistently high-paying, particularly in Germany and the UK. These roles fall under legal, accounting, and banking and finance categories and reward deep regulatory or financial expertise. Job skills are constantly evolving, especially with advancements in technology. 'Continuous learning is essential in a fast-evolving market,' Pawel Adrjan, Director of Economic Research at Indeed, told Euronews Business. 'As was the case with all prior cases of technological innovations, professionals who proactively learn new tools, platforms, and methodologies will position themselves more competitively to work most efficiently with the emerging technologies.' In Germany, corporate tax advisors receive the highest annual median salary, at €145,000. The chart also displays mean salaries for comparison. Various sales roles, such as managing director and head of sales, follow closely, with median earnings ranging from €107,500 to €138,243. A labour law attorney earns €105,000, while a lawyer receives €93,334. System applications product (SAP) consultants earn just below the €100,000 threshold, with senior system engineers close behind at €95,000. Other tech roles such as IT security specialist and technical SAP consultant make around €90,000. In the management category, directors also earn approximately €90,000. There is only one medical title listed — dentists — earning a median salary of nearly €86,000. In France, dentists top the list with the highest annual median salary at €95,000, followed by orthodontists earning €78,750. In the tech sector, network architects receive €72,361, while medical technicians in the healthcare field make €70,000. A compliance officer in production and manufacturing earns €67,500. Roles like domain manager and sales agent follow, with salaries of around €65,000 and €64,855 respectively. The digital transformation consultant and mechanical designer earn €62,750 and €62,500. Several positions report identical median salaries of €60,000, including engineering director, real estate salesperson, operations director, senior sales representative, account executive, production director, human resources director, cloud architect (cloud IT professional) and loan broker advisor. Healthcare professions dominate the top end of the UK salary spectrum, with nine of the top 20 highest-paying roles in this sector. In the UK, fashion models top the list with a striking annual median salary of €166,390 (£140,000). They are followed by medical consultants, earning €145,821 (£111,412). Medical directors and radiologists both earn €137,566. Other high earners in the healthcare sector include orthodontists (€130,767), clinical consultants (€125,392), chief nursing officers (€124,793), and clinical directors (€109,442). Associate dentists (€116,785) and periodontists (€113,808) are also among the top earners. In sterling, their annual salaries range from £96,000 to £116,000. Senior leadership and technical roles also feature prominently: project directors earn €122,528, directors of technology €121,821, and microbiologists €121,313. In the Netherlands, roles in management, accounting, and software development are among the best-paid. General directors lead with a median annual salary of €115,000. Other top-paying roles include business controllers (€80,000), team leaders (€78,206), and engineers (€75,208). Finance roles like controllers and financial controllers also perform well, earning between €72,500 and €75,816. Salaries in sales and tech positions tend to cluster between €56,500 and €66,000, with roles such as sales manager, software engineer, data analyst, and account executive all falling within this range. 'Attending a top-ranked university can certainly influence job prospects and salary potential, especially in countries like France or the UK,' Pawel Adrjan said. He noted that graduating from elite educational institutions like grandes écoles and universities with a long history can be perceived as a signal of ability in the labour market. 'However, recent trends we observe on Indeed in both the UK and France show that formal education requirements in job postings are becoming less common, especially in high-skill fields like IT and data science, suggesting a gradual shift toward skills-based hiring,' he added. As jobs continue to evolve, it's completely natural for the highest-paying roles to change too. 'Over the next 5-10 years, we anticipate that green energy, AI/GenAI, cybersecurity, and biotechnology will produce new top-earning job titles,' said Adrjan of Indeed. He explained that roles like AI ethicist, key sustainability roles, GenAI engineers, and climate data analysts are gaining traction and are likely to move into the upper salary echelons as demand for specialised expertise in these areas grows.

US and Chinese officials meet in London for pivotal trade talks

Fashion Network

6 hours ago

Fashion Network

US and Chinese officials meet in London for pivotal trade talks

White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett said on Monday that the U.S. team wanted a handshake from China on rare earths after President Donald Trump said Chinese President Xi Jinping had agreed to resume shipments in a rare call between the two presidents last week. "The purpose of the meeting today is to make sure that they're serious, but to literally get handshakes," Hassett, director of the National Economic Council, told CNBC in an interview. He said the U.S. would expect export controls to be eased and rare earths released in volume immediately afterwards. The London talks, expected to continue into the evening on Monday, come at a crucial time for both economies, which are showing signs of strain from Trump's cascade of tariff orders since his return to the White House in January. Customs data showed that China's exports to the U.S. plunged 34.5% year-on-year in May in value terms, the sharpest drop since February 2020, when the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic upended global trade. In the U.S., business and household confidence has taken a pummeling, while first-quarter gross domestic product contracted due to a record surge in imports as Americans front-loaded purchases to beat anticipated price increases. But for now, the impact on inflation has been muted, and the jobs market has remained fairly resilient, though economists expect cracks to become more apparent over the summer. Attending the talks in London are U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer. The Chinese contingent led by Vice Premier He Lifeng includes Commerce Minister Wang Wentao and the ministry's chief trade negotiator, Li Chenggang. The inclusion of Lutnick, whose agency oversees export controls for the U.S., is one indication of how central rare earths have become, and some analysts saw it as a sign that Trump is willing to put recently imposed Commerce Department export restrictions on the table. China holds a near-monopoly on rare earth magnets, a crucial component in electric vehicle motors. Lutnick did not attend the Geneva talks at which the countries struck a 90-day deal to roll back some of the triple-digit tariffs they had placed on each other. Trump and Xi spoke by phone last week, their first direct interaction since Trump's January 20 inauguration. During the call, Xi told Trump to back down from trade measures that roiled the global economy and warned him against threatening steps on Taiwan, according to a Chinese government summary. But Trump said on social media the talks focused primarily on trade led to "a very positive conclusion," setting the stage for Monday's meeting in the British capital. The next day, Trump said Xi had agreed to resume shipments to the U.S. of rare earths minerals and magnets, and Reuters reported that China has granted temporary export licenses to rare-earth suppliers of the top three U.S. automakers. China's decision in April to suspend exports of a wide range of critical minerals and magnets upended the supply chains central to automakers, aerospace manufacturers, semiconductor companies and military contractors around the world. Kelly Ann Shaw, a former White House trade adviser during Trump's first term, said that the U.S. was arguing that China's continued export control restrictions violated the agreement in Geneva to remove retaliatory measures. "What I expect to see announced in the next few hours is effectively a reaffirmation of China's commitment, plus some concessions on the U.S. side, with respect to export controls measures over the past week or two," said Shaw, a trade partner at the Akin Gump law firm in Washington. But Shaw said she expected the U.S. only to agree to lift some new export curbs, not longstanding ones such as for advanced artificial intelligence chips. Reuters reported on May 28 that the U.S. ordered a halt to shipments of semiconductor design software and chemicals and aviation equipment, revoking export licenses that had been previously issued. White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt told the Fox News program "Sunday Morning Futures" that the U.S. wanted the two sides to build on the progress made in Geneva in the hope they could move towards more comprehensive trade talks. The preliminary deal in Geneva sparked a global relief rally in stock markets, and U.S. indexes that had been in or near bear market levels have recouped the lion's share of their losses. But Ian Bremmer, president of the Eurasia Group, said while a temporary truce was possible, there was little prospect for the bilateral relationship to become constructive given broader decoupling trends and continued U.S. pressure on other countries to take China out of their supply chains. "Everyone around Trump is still hawkish and so a breakthrough U.S.-China trade deal is unlikely, especially in the context of other deals that are further along and prioritized," he said in an analyst note.

Fashion Network

11 hours ago

Fashion Network

US and Chinese officials meet in London for pivotal trade talks

White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett said on Monday that the U.S. team wanted a handshake from China on rare earths after President Donald Trump said Chinese President Xi Jinping had agreed to resume shipments in a rare call between the two presidents last week. "The purpose of the meeting today is to make sure that they're serious, but to literally get handshakes," Hassett, director of the National Economic Council, told CNBC in an interview. He said the U.S. would expect export controls to be eased and rare earths released in volume immediately afterwards. The London talks, expected to continue into the evening on Monday, come at a crucial time for both economies, which are showing signs of strain from Trump's cascade of tariff orders since his return to the White House in January. Customs data showed that China's exports to the U.S. plunged 34.5% year-on-year in May in value terms, the sharpest drop since February 2020, when the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic upended global trade. In the U.S., business and household confidence has taken a pummeling, while first-quarter gross domestic product contracted due to a record surge in imports as Americans front-loaded purchases to beat anticipated price increases. But for now, the impact on inflation has been muted, and the jobs market has remained fairly resilient, though economists expect cracks to become more apparent over the summer. Attending the talks in London are U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer. The Chinese contingent led by Vice Premier He Lifeng includes Commerce Minister Wang Wentao and the ministry's chief trade negotiator, Li Chenggang. The inclusion of Lutnick, whose agency oversees export controls for the U.S., is one indication of how central rare earths have become, and some analysts saw it as a sign that Trump is willing to put recently imposed Commerce Department export restrictions on the table. China holds a near-monopoly on rare earth magnets, a crucial component in electric vehicle motors. Lutnick did not attend the Geneva talks at which the countries struck a 90-day deal to roll back some of the triple-digit tariffs they had placed on each other. Trump and Xi spoke by phone last week, their first direct interaction since Trump's January 20 inauguration. During the call, Xi told Trump to back down from trade measures that roiled the global economy and warned him against threatening steps on Taiwan, according to a Chinese government summary. But Trump said on social media the talks focused primarily on trade led to "a very positive conclusion," setting the stage for Monday's meeting in the British capital. The next day, Trump said Xi had agreed to resume shipments to the U.S. of rare earths minerals and magnets, and Reuters reported that China has granted temporary export licenses to rare-earth suppliers of the top three U.S. automakers. China's decision in April to suspend exports of a wide range of critical minerals and magnets upended the supply chains central to automakers, aerospace manufacturers, semiconductor companies and military contractors around the world. Kelly Ann Shaw, a former White House trade adviser during Trump's first term, said that the U.S. was arguing that China's continued export control restrictions violated the agreement in Geneva to remove retaliatory measures. "What I expect to see announced in the next few hours is effectively a reaffirmation of China's commitment, plus some concessions on the U.S. side, with respect to export controls measures over the past week or two," said Shaw, a trade partner at the Akin Gump law firm in Washington. But Shaw said she expected the U.S. only to agree to lift some new export curbs, not longstanding ones such as for advanced artificial intelligence chips. Reuters reported on May 28 that the U.S. ordered a halt to shipments of semiconductor design software and chemicals and aviation equipment, revoking export licenses that had been previously issued. White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt told the Fox News program "Sunday Morning Futures" that the U.S. wanted the two sides to build on the progress made in Geneva in the hope they could move towards more comprehensive trade talks. The preliminary deal in Geneva sparked a global relief rally in stock markets, and U.S. indexes that had been in or near bear market levels have recouped the lion's share of their losses. But Ian Bremmer, president of the Eurasia Group, said while a temporary truce was possible, there was little prospect for the bilateral relationship to become constructive given broader decoupling trends and continued U.S. pressure on other countries to take China out of their supply chains. "Everyone around Trump is still hawkish and so a breakthrough U.S.-China trade deal is unlikely, especially in the context of other deals that are further along and prioritized," he said in an analyst note.

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China says its exports to the US have plummeted ahead of trade talks

US and Chinese officials meet in London for pivotal trade talks

US and Chinese officials meet in London for pivotal trade talks

Kurt Geiger opens first store in Miami

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China says its exports to the US have plummeted ahead of trade talks

US and Chinese officials meet in London for pivotal trade talks

US and Chinese officials meet in London for pivotal trade talks

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