US and China sign trade agreement, Donald Trump says
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told Bloomberg TV that the deal was signed earlier this week. Neither Mr Lutnick nor Mr Trump provided any details about the agreement.
'We just signed with China the other day,' Mr Trump said late on Thursday.
Mr Lutnick said the deal was 'signed and sealed' two days earlier.
It follows initial talks in Geneva in early May that led both sides to postpone massive tariff hikes that were threatening to freeze much trade between the two countries.
Later talks in London set a framework for negotiations and the deal mentioned by Mr Trump appeared to formalise that agreement.
Mr Lutnick said: 'The president likes to close these deals himself. He's the dealmaker. We're going to have deal after deal.'
China has not confirmed any new agreements, but it announced earlier this week that it was speeding up approvals of exports of rare earths, materials used in high-tech products such as electric vehicles.
Beijing's limits on exports of rare earths have been a key point of contention.
The Chinese Commerce Ministry said on Thursday that Beijing was accelerating a review of export licence applications for rare earths and had approved 'a certain number of compliant applications'.
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The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
US supreme court expected to rule on birthright citizenship and other outstanding cases on last day of term
Update: Date: 2025-06-27T12:23:06.000Z Title: US supreme court Content: to rule on Trump's attempt to limit birthright citizenship, a move that would drastically shift immigration policy and how the constitution has long been understood Lucy Campbell (now) and Jane Clinton (earlier) Fri 27 Jun 2025 14.23 CEST First published on Fri 27 Jun 2025 11.58 CEST From 12.48pm CEST 12:48 The may rule on Friday on Donald Trump's attempt to broadly enforce his executive order to limit birthright citizenship, a move that would affect thousands of babies born each year as the president seeks a major shift in how the US constitution has long been understood, Reuters reports. The administration has made an emergency request for the justices to scale back injunctions issued by federal judges in Maryland, Washington and Massachusetts blocking Trump's directive nationwide. The judges found that Trump's order likely violates citizenship language in the US Constitution's 14th Amendment. On his first day back in office, Trump signed an executive order directing federal agencies to refuse to recognise the citizenship of children born in the United States who do not have at least one parent who is an American citizen or lawful permanent resident, also called a 'green card' holder. Updated at 1.26pm CEST 2.21pm CEST 14:21 Defense secretary Pete Hegseth has announced that the US navy is renaming USNS Harvey Milk to the USNS Oscar V. Peterson. In a post on X, Hegseth said: We are taking the politics out of ship naming. We're not renaming the ship to anything political. This is not about political activists, unlike the previous administration. Instead we're naming the ship after a US navy congressional medal of honor recipient, as it should be. People want to be proud of the ship they're sailing in. My colleague Maya Yang reported earlier this month that Hegseth had ordered the navy to strip the name of the prominent gay rights activist and navy veteran Harvey Milk from a ship during the middle of June. The timing of the announcement, during Pride month - a month meant to celebrate the LGBTQ+ community – was reportedly intentional. The vessel was initially named after Milk in 2016 during the Barack Obama administration. Milk was a prominent gay rights activist who served in the US navy during the Korean war. He later went on to run for office in California where he won a seat on the San Francisco board of supervisors. As one of the US's first openly gay politicians, Milk became a forefront figure of the gay rights movement across the country before his assassination in 1978 by a former city supervisor. Here's Maya's earlier report. Updated at 2.23pm CEST 1.59pm CEST 13:59 The is meeting on Friday to decide the final six cases of its term, including Donald Trump's bid to enforce his executive order denying birthright citizenship to US-born children of parents who are in the country illegally (see earlier post). As posted earlier it is also to deliver a ruling on LBGT books in schools. The justices take the bench at 10am for their last public session until the start of their new term on 6 October. Decisions also are expected in several other important cases including: A bid by Louisiana officials and civil rights groups to preserve an electoral map that raised the number of Black-majority congressional districts in the state and prompted a challenge by non-Black voters. State officials and advocacy groups have appealed a lower court's ruling that found the map laying out Louisiana's six US House of Representatives districts - with two Black-majority districts, up from one previously - violated the US Constitution's promise of equal protection, Reuters reports. Free speech rights are at the centre of a case over a Texas law aimed at blocking children from seeing online pornography. Texas is among more than a dozen states with age verification laws. The states argue the laws are necessary as smartphones have made access to online porn, including hardcore obscene material, almost instantaneous. The question for the court is whether the measure infringes on the constitutional rights of adults as well, AP reports. Updated at 2.05pm CEST 1.43pm CEST 13:43 The Trump administration is readying a package of executive actions aimed at boosting energy supply to power the US expansion of artificial intelligence, according to four sources familiar with the planning, Reuters reports. US and China are locked in a technological arms race and with it secure an economic and military edge. The huge amount of data processing behind AI requires a rapid increase in power supplies that are straining utilities and grids in many states. The moves under consideration include making it easier for power-generating projects to connect to the grid, and providing federal land on which to build the data centres needed to expand AI technology, according to the sources. The administration will also release an AI action plan and schedule public events to draw public attention to the efforts, according to the sources, who requested anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. The White House did not respond to requests for comment. Training large-scale AI models requires a huge amount of electricity, and the industry's growth is driving the first big increase in US power demand in decades. 1.26pm CEST 13:26 The charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) charity called for a controversial Israel-and US-backed relief effort in Gaza to be halted, saying it was 'slaughter masquerading as humanitarian aid', AFP reports. The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, launched last month, 'is degrading Palestinians by design, forcing them to choose between starvation or risking their lives for minimal supplies', MSF said in a statement on Friday, demanding that the scheme be 'immediately dismantled'. 1.13pm CEST 13:13 We have more from Reuters on Lynne Tracy, the US ambassador to Russia, who is leaving Moscow. The departure of the career diplomat appointed under the administration of former president Joe Biden comes as Russia and the United States discuss a potential reset in their ties which sharply deteriorated after Moscow launched its full-scale war in Ukraine in 2022. President Donald Trump has said there are potentially big investment deals to be struck, but is growing increasingly frustrated that his efforts to broker a peace deal to end the war in Ukraine have so far not resulted in a meaningful ceasefire. 'I am proud to have represented my country in Moscow during such a challenging time. As I leave Russia, I know that my colleagues at the embassy will continue to work to improve our relations and maintain ties with the Russian people,' the embassy cited Tracy as saying in a statement. The embassy said earlier this month that Tracy, who arrived in Moscow in January 2023 and was greeted by protesters chanting anti-US slogans when she went to the foreign ministry to present her credentials, would leave her post soon. Her successor has not been publicly named. 1.03pm CEST 13:03 Anti-Muslim online posts targeting New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani have surged since his Democratic primary upset this week, including death threats and comments comparing his candidacy to the 11 September 2001 attacks, advocates said on Friday. There were at least 127 violent hate-related reports mentioning Mamdani or his campaign in the day after polls closed, said CAIR Action, an arm of the Council on American Islamic Relations advocacy group, which logs such incidents, Reuters reports. That marks a five-fold increase over a daily average of such reports tracked earlier this month, CAIR Action said in a statement. Overall, it noted about 6,200 online posts that mentioned some form of Islamophobic slur or hostility in that day-long time-frame. Mamdani, a self-described democratic socialist and a 33-year-old state lawmaker, declared victory in Tuesday's primary after former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo conceded defeat. Born in Uganda to Indian parents, Mamdani would be the city's first Muslim and Indian American mayor if he wins the November general election. 'We call on public officials of every party - including those whose allies are amplifying these smears - to unequivocally condemn Islamophobia,' said Basim Elkarra, executive director of CAIR Action. Updated at 1.21pm CEST 12.48pm CEST 12:48 The may rule on Friday on Donald Trump's attempt to broadly enforce his executive order to limit birthright citizenship, a move that would affect thousands of babies born each year as the president seeks a major shift in how the US constitution has long been understood, Reuters reports. The administration has made an emergency request for the justices to scale back injunctions issued by federal judges in Maryland, Washington and Massachusetts blocking Trump's directive nationwide. The judges found that Trump's order likely violates citizenship language in the US Constitution's 14th Amendment. On his first day back in office, Trump signed an executive order directing federal agencies to refuse to recognise the citizenship of children born in the United States who do not have at least one parent who is an American citizen or lawful permanent resident, also called a 'green card' holder. Updated at 1.26pm CEST 12.39pm CEST 12:39 The United States has postponed sanctions against the Russian-owned Serbian oil company NIS for a fourth time until 29 July, Serbia's mining and energy minister Dubravka Đedović Handanović said on Friday. NIS has so far secured three reprieves, the last of which was due to expire later on Friday. 'Sanctions have been formally postponed ... overnight we have received written confirmations ... after a hard and tiring diplomatic struggle,' she told reporters. The US Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control initially placed sanctions on Russia's oil sector on 10 January, and gave Gazprom Neft 45 days to exit ownership of NIS. The United States Department of Treasury did not reply to a Reuters inquiry about the latest sanctions reprieve. 12.27pm CEST 12:27 by Joseph Gedeon and Robert Tait in Washington Republican and Democratic senators have offered starkly contrasting interpretations of Donald Trump's bombing of Iranian nuclear facilities after a delayed behind-closed-doors intelligence briefing that the White House had earlier postponed amid accusations of leaks. Thursday's session with senior national security officials came after the White House moved back its briefing, originally scheduled for Tuesday, fueling Democratic complaints that Trump was stonewalling Congress over military action the president authorised without congressional approval. 'Senators deserve full transparency, and the administration has a legal obligation to inform Congress precisely about what is happening,' the Senate Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer, said following the initial postponement, which he termed 'outrageous'. Even as senators were being briefed, Trump reignited the row with a Truth Social post accusing Democrats of leaking a draft Pentagon report that suggested last weekend's strikes had only set back Iran's nuclear program by months – contradicting the president's insistence that it was 'obliterated'. 'The Democrats are the ones who leaked the information on the PERFECT FLIGHT to the Nuclear Sites in Iran. They should be prosecuted!' he wrote. Read the full report here: Updated at 1.20pm CEST 12.19pm CEST 12:19 The US Supreme Court is expected to rule on Friday in a bid by Christian and Muslim parents in Maryland to keep their elementary school children out of certain classes when storybooks with LGBT characters are read, Reuters reports. Parents with children in public schools in Montgomery County, located just outside of Washington, appealed after lower courts declined to order the local school district to let children opt out when these books are read. The court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, has expanded the rights of religious people in several cases in recent years. The school board in Montgomery County approved in 2022 a handful of storybooks that feature LGBT characters as part of its English language-arts curriculum in order to better represent the diversity of families living in the county. The storybooks are available for teachers to use 'alongside the many books already in the curriculum that feature heterosexual characters in traditional gender roles,' the district said in a filing. The district said it ended the opt-outs in 2023 when the mounting number of requests to excuse students from these classes became logistically unworkable and raised concerns of 'social stigma and isolation' among students who believe the books represent them and their families. Updated at 1.19pm CEST 12.07pm CEST 12:07 Japan and the United States are arranging for US secretary of state Marco Rubio to visit Japan for the first time in early July, Kyodo news agency reported on Friday. Rubio is also planning to visit South Korea alongside attending the Association of Southeast Asian Nations foreign ministers' meetings in Malaysia in July, Kyodo reported, without mentioning sources, Reuters reports. 11.58am CEST 11:58 Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog. We start with news that several key provisions in Donald Trump's 'big, beautiful bill' must be reworked or dropped, a Senate parliamentarian has said. The New York Times reports that Elizabeth MacDonough, the parliamentarian who enforces the Senate's rules, has rejected a slew of major provisions, sending GOP leaders into a frenzy to try to salvage the legislation before next week's 4 July deadline. The publication reports that MacDonough has said several of the measures in the legislation that would 'provide hundreds of billions of dollars in savings could not be included in the legislation in their current form'. They include one that would 'crack down on strategies that many states have developed to obtain more federal Medicaid funds and another that would limit repayment options for student loan borrowers,' the NYT reports. The report added that MacDonough 'has not yet ruled on all parts of the bill' and that the tax changes at the centerpiece of Trump's agenda 'are still under review'. In his final pitch to congressional leaders and cabinet secretaries at the White House on Thursday, Donald Trump also made no mention of deadlines, as his marquee tax-and-spending bill develops a logjam that could threaten its passage through the Senate. Meanwhile, Robert F Kennedy Jr's reconstituted vaccine advisory panel recommended against seasonal influenza vaccines containing specific preservative thimerosal – a change likely to send shock through the global medical and scientific community and possibly impact future vaccine availability. About two weeks ago, Kennedy fired all 17 experts on the panel and went on to appoint eight new members, at least half of whom have expressed scepticism about some vaccines, the New York Times reports. Separately, the panel also recommended a new treatment to prevent respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) in infants. In other developments: Donald Trump has threatened to sue the New York Times and CNN over the outlets' reporting on a preliminary intelligence assessment on the US strikes in Iran that found the operation did less damage to nuclear sites than the administration has claimed. NBC News is reporting that the White House plans to limit intelligence sharing with members of Congress after an early assessment of damage caused by US strikes on Iran's nuclear sites were leaked this week, a senior White House official confirmed to the network. Secretary of state Marco Rubio has announced a new visa restriction policy he said was aimed at stopping the flow of fentanyl and other illicit drugs into the United States. US ambassador to Russia, Lynne Tracy leaves Moscow, the US embassy in Russia says, according to Reuters. The White House has recommended terminating US funding for nearly two dozen programs that conduct war crimes and accountability work globally, including in Myanmar, Syria and on alleged Russian atrocities in Ukraine, according to three US sources familiar with the matter and internal government documents reviewed by Reuters. Donald Trump has not decided on a replacement for Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and a decision isn't imminent, a person familiar with the White House's deliberations said on Thursday, as one central bank policymaker said any move to name a 'shadow' chair would be ineffective. Donald Trump's administration is planning to deport migrant Kilmar Abrego for a second time, but does not plan to send him back to El Salvador, where he was wrongly deported in March, a lawyer for the administration told a judge on Thursday. The deportation will not happen until after Abrego is tried in federal court on migrant smuggling charges, a White House spokesperson said. Updated at 12.17pm CEST
Rhyl Journal
an hour ago
- Rhyl Journal
Talks on nuclear programme complicated by US strikes, Iran says
Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi told state television that the attacks had caused 'serious damage'. The US was one of the parties to the 2015 nuclear deal in which Iran agreed to limits on its uranium enrichment programme in exchange for sanctions relief and other benefits. The deal unravelled after President Donald Trump pulled the US out unilaterally during his first term. Mr Trump has suggested he is interested in new talks with Iran and said the two sides would meet next week. Mr Araghchi left open the possibility that his country would again enter talks on its nuclear programme, but suggested it would not be any time soon. 'No agreement has been made for resuming the negotiations,' he said. 'No time has been set, no promise has been made and we haven't even talked about restarting the talks.' The American decision to intervene militarily 'made it more complicated and more difficult' for talks, Mr Araghchi said. Israel attacked Iran on June 13, targeting its nuclear sites, defence systems, high-ranking military officials and atomic scientists. In 12 days of strikes, Israel said it killed some 30 Iranian commanders and hit eight nuclear-related facilities and more than 720 military infrastructure sites. More than 1,000 people were killed, including at least 417 civilians, according to the Washington-based Human Rights Activists group. Iran fired more than 550 ballistic missiles at Israel, most of which were intercepted but those that got through caused damage in many areas and killed 28 people. The US stepped in on Sunday to hit Iran's three most important sites with a wave of cruise missiles and bunker-buster bombs dropped by B-2 bombers, designed to penetrate deep into the ground to damage the heavily-fortified targets. Iran, in retaliation, fired missiles at a US base in Qatar on Monday but caused no known casualties. Mr Trump said the American attacks 'completely and fully obliterated' Iran's nuclear programme, though Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Thursday accused the US president of exaggerating the damage, saying the strikes did not 'achieve anything significant'. There has been speculation that Iran moved much of its highly-enriched uranium before the strikes, something it told UN nuclear watchdog the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that it planned to do. Even if that turns out to be true, IAEA director Rafael Grossi told Radio France International that the damage done to the Fordo site, which was built into a mountain, 'is very, very, very considerable'. Among other things, he said, centrifuges are 'quite precise machines' and it's 'not possible' that the concussion from multiple 30,000-pound bombs would not have caused 'important physical damage'. 'These centrifuges are no longer operational,' he said. Mr Araghchi himself acknowledged that 'the level of damage is high, and it's serious damage'. He added that Iran had not yet decided upon whether to allow IAEA inspectors in to assess the damage, but that they would be kept out 'for the time being'.
North Wales Chronicle
an hour ago
- North Wales Chronicle
Talks on nuclear programme complicated by US strikes, Iran says
Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi told state television that the attacks had caused 'serious damage'. The US was one of the parties to the 2015 nuclear deal in which Iran agreed to limits on its uranium enrichment programme in exchange for sanctions relief and other benefits. The deal unravelled after President Donald Trump pulled the US out unilaterally during his first term. Mr Trump has suggested he is interested in new talks with Iran and said the two sides would meet next week. Mr Araghchi left open the possibility that his country would again enter talks on its nuclear programme, but suggested it would not be any time soon. 'No agreement has been made for resuming the negotiations,' he said. 'No time has been set, no promise has been made and we haven't even talked about restarting the talks.' The American decision to intervene militarily 'made it more complicated and more difficult' for talks, Mr Araghchi said. Israel attacked Iran on June 13, targeting its nuclear sites, defence systems, high-ranking military officials and atomic scientists. In 12 days of strikes, Israel said it killed some 30 Iranian commanders and hit eight nuclear-related facilities and more than 720 military infrastructure sites. More than 1,000 people were killed, including at least 417 civilians, according to the Washington-based Human Rights Activists group. Iran fired more than 550 ballistic missiles at Israel, most of which were intercepted but those that got through caused damage in many areas and killed 28 people. The US stepped in on Sunday to hit Iran's three most important sites with a wave of cruise missiles and bunker-buster bombs dropped by B-2 bombers, designed to penetrate deep into the ground to damage the heavily-fortified targets. Iran, in retaliation, fired missiles at a US base in Qatar on Monday but caused no known casualties. Mr Trump said the American attacks 'completely and fully obliterated' Iran's nuclear programme, though Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Thursday accused the US president of exaggerating the damage, saying the strikes did not 'achieve anything significant'. There has been speculation that Iran moved much of its highly-enriched uranium before the strikes, something it told UN nuclear watchdog the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that it planned to do. Even if that turns out to be true, IAEA director Rafael Grossi told Radio France International that the damage done to the Fordo site, which was built into a mountain, 'is very, very, very considerable'. Among other things, he said, centrifuges are 'quite precise machines' and it's 'not possible' that the concussion from multiple 30,000-pound bombs would not have caused 'important physical damage'. 'These centrifuges are no longer operational,' he said. Mr Araghchi himself acknowledged that 'the level of damage is high, and it's serious damage'. He added that Iran had not yet decided upon whether to allow IAEA inspectors in to assess the damage, but that they would be kept out 'for the time being'.
