Trump, Xi Jinping likely to speak this week
Washington: US President Donald Trump is likely to hold a phone call with Chinese President Xi Jinping this week, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Monday.
Leavitt provided no further details and there was no immediate confirmation from Beijing. If the call takes place, the leaders are expected to focus on the ongoing trade dispute. Although the United States and China agreed in mid-May to ease some of their tariffs, tensions between the countries have recently flared up again.
Meanwhile, the US Senate is working on new sanctions against Russia.
Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said the measures would target countries that continue to purchase Russian oil, gas and other energy supplies - a move that could heavily impact China. (DPA)
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Al Jazeera
29 minutes ago
- Al Jazeera
Tesla shares slide as CEO Musk and President Trump have a public face-off
Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and self-proclaimed 'first buddy' of President Donald Trump, has stepped up criticism of the president's massive tax legislation in recent days. Investors are starting to notice. Tesla shares dropped more than 5 percent on Thursday on a day otherwise devoid of news for the electric vehicle maker, leading traders to speculate that Musk's increasingly pointed rhetoric suggests strain in the relationship that has benefitted his sprawling empire of businesses. Trump said on Thursday that Musk was upset because the bill took the EV mandate away. 'Look, Elon and I had a great relationship. I don't know if we will any more,' the president said. 'He said the most beautiful things about me. And he hasn't said bad about me personally. That'll be next. But I'm very disappointed.' Trump's comments extended a decline in Tesla shares. The world's richest man, a key figure in the Department of Government Efficiency's (DOGE) cost-cutting initiative for several months, has blasted the bill, not long after he said he would spend less time in the White House and more time with his companies. On his social media platform X, Musk has called on Congress members to kill the legislation, calling it a 'disgusting abomination'. 'It more than defeats all the cost savings achieved by the DOGE team at great personal cost and risk,' Musk, the largest Republican donor in the 2024 election cycle, said on X on Tuesday. Musk's leadership of DOGE and his alignment with the Trump administration have put off some Tesla buyers. Sales of his EVs have slumped in Europe, China and key US markets like California, even as overall electric vehicle purchases continue to grow. Musk has slowly started to separate himself from the White House in recent weeks, stung in part by the wave of protests against Tesla. 'Elon's politics continue to harm the stock. First, he aligned himself with Trump, which upset many potential Democratic buyers. Now, he has turned on the Trump administration,' said Tesla shareholder Dennis Dick, chief strategist at Stock Trader Network. Musk's other businesses, SpaceX and Starlink, dominate their respective markets, but have also come under scrutiny due to Musk's relationship with Trump. Those two businesses often serve as the default choice for commercial launches and satellite internet deployment, and foreign governments have also increasingly looked to Starlink, with regulatory approvals smoothed by Musk's ties. Tesla shares are down 12 percent since May 27, roughly coinciding with his decision to pull back from Washington activities. The stock has been on a roller-coaster ever since his endorsement of Trump in mid-July 2024 in his re-election bid, gaining 169 percent from that point through mid-December. That was followed by a 54 percent selloff through early April as a 'Tesla Takedown' protest movement intensified. The House of Representatives version of the budget bill proposes largely ending the popular $7,500 electric vehicle subsidy by the end of 2025. Tesla and other carmakers have relied on incentives for years to drum up demand, but Trump promised during the transition to end the subsidy. Tesla could face a $1.2bn hit to its full-year profit, along with an additional $2bn setback to regulatory credit sales due to separate Senate legislation targeting California's EV sales mandates, according to JP Morgan analysts. 'The budget bill contains bad stuff for Tesla with the end of the EV credits, and just generally his falling out with Trump has risks for Tesla and Elon's other companies,' said Jed Ellerbroek, portfolio manager at Argent Capital Management. Musk's public attacks have upset potential Republican Tesla buyers as well, Dennis Dick added. One White House official on Wednesday called the Tesla CEO's moves 'infuriating'. The billionaire joined Senate Republican deficit hawks this week in arguing that the House bill does not go far enough in reducing spending. Overall, Tesla shares are down 22 percent this year, including Thursday's losses. But the company is still the most valuable carmaker worldwide by a long shot – carrying a market value of $1 trillion, far surpassing Toyota Motor's market value of about $290bn.
Al Jazeera
4 hours ago
- Al Jazeera
World reacts to Trump's travel ban, hits several nations mired in conflict
Donald Trump has signed an executive order banning citizens from 12 countries from entering the country in a move he said was to protect the US from 'foreign terrorists', mirroring a contentious policy from his first term as United States president. As part of Trump's intensified crackdown on immigration, a cornerstone of his previous time in the White House and on the campaign trail, he announced on Wednesday that nationals from 12 countries – Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen – will be banned. Seven countries will also be subject to partial restrictions, which will mean they will no longer be able to apply for immigrant or non-immigrant temporary visas. However, some temporary work visas will still be allowed. Trump cited an attack in Boulder, Colorado, where a man threw a petrol bomb into a crowd of pro-Israel demonstrators, as proof of the need for immigration curbs. 'The recent terror attack in Boulder, Colorado, has underscored the extreme dangers posed to our country by the entry of foreign nationals who are not properly vetted,' Trump said in a video message from the Oval Office posted on X. 'We don't want them,' he added. This latest travel ban follows Trump's executive order during his first term, in which he banned nationals from seven Muslim-majority countries, also known as the 'Muslim ban,' in 2017. Seven of the countries on the new list of those banned also have Muslim-majority populations and several are beset by ongoing conflicts. Despite the new suspensions, the ban will not apply to existing visa holders, foreign diplomats, athletes and their teams, among other exemptions. The ban is expected to come into effect on June 9 at 12:01 am EDT (04:01 GMT). Here's how the world has reacted to the ban. The AU, which has seven of the 12 nations on the travel ban list, said the ban would harm 'people-to-people ties, educational exchange, commercial engagement, and broader diplomatic relations' that were built with the US over past decades. 'The African Union Commission respectfully calls upon the US administration to consider adopting a more consultative approach and to engage in constructive dialogue with the countries concerned,' the bloc said in a statement. President of Oxfam America, Abby Maxman, said the decision was not about 'national security'. 'It is about sowing division and vilifying communities that are seeking safety and opportunity in the United States,' Maxman said. The Somali ambassador to the US, Dahir Hassan Abdi, said in a statement that Mogadishu 'values its longstanding relationship with the United States'. '[Somalia] stands ready to engage in dialogue to address the concerns raised,' Abdi said. Interior minister Diosdado Cabello described the ban as a 'great risk for anyone, not just Venezuelans'. 'They persecute our countrymen, our people, for no reason,' he said. Venezuelan migrants in the US have been targeted by the Trump administration for deportation to El Salvador, many on unproven allegations of being gang members.
Al Jazeera
7 hours ago
- Al Jazeera
Which countries are on Trump's travel ban list, and who will be affected?
United States President Donald Trump signed a presidential proclamation on Wednesday banning citizens of 12 countries from entering the US. Heightened restrictions on entering the US have been put in place for nationals of seven more countries. The travel ban is Trump's latest move in the immigration crackdown that he promised on the campaign trail before last year's presidential election. Trump said the measures would help to 'protect Americans from dangerous foreign actors'. Here is what we know about the travel ban so far: The 12 countries whose nationals are fully restricted from travelling to the US under Trump's travel ban are:The seven countries subject to partial restrictions are: Citizens from the 12 countries subject to a full ban on travel to the US will face a complete suspension of immigrant and non-immigrant visas. Citizens from the seven countries which have been placed under partial restrictions will no longer be able to apply for immigrant visas or non-immigrant temporary visas covering permanent immigration, student visas and tourism visas including B-1, B-2, B-1/B-2, F, M and J. They will still be able to apply for some temporary visas, however. Unlike an executive order, a presidential proclamation is not legally binding but generally signals a policy shift. The new rules apply only to people outside the US at the time of the proclamation and who did not yet hold a valid visa at the time of the proclamation. Yes. The new suspension and restrictions will not apply to: A total of 363,549 people from the 19 listed countries entered the US in the fiscal year 2022 – the most recent year on record for arrivals – according to data from the Department of Homeland Security. Some 250,234 of these people were from Venezuela, which is subject to partial restrictions only. A further 66,563 of these people were from Haiti, which now faces a complete travel cited security threats and 'foreign terrorists' as grounds for the ban. In a video posted on Wednesday on his social media platform, Truth Social, Trump said the recent attack in Boulder, Colorado 'has underscored the extreme dangers posed to our country by the entry of foreign nationals who are not properly vetted, as well as those who come here as temporary visitors and overstay their visas'. On June 1, police arrested a man who threw incendiary devices towards a group of people attending a rally for the release of captives taken from Israel on October 7, 2023 and held in Gaza. The FBI said it was investigating the incident as 'an act of terror'. Suspect Mohamed Sabry Soliman was charged with a federal hate crime, as well as an array of state charges, according to an affidavit by the US Department of Justice. Soliman is an Egyptian national who has also lived in Kuwait. Neither of these countries is on Trump's list of banned countries. In a Truth Social post, Trump blamed '[former US President Joe] Biden's ridiculous Open Border Policy' for allowing Soliman into the country. Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff for policy, said the suspect in the Boulder incident had overstayed a tourist visa, without naming Soliman. A fact sheet published by the White House stated a specific justification for the exclusion of each country on the new travel ban list. These justifications included that large numbers of citizens had overstayed their visas, that the countries had a poor record of cooperating with the US to receive their citizens back if they had overstayed in the US, or that the countries were affected by war. According to the most recent figures from the US Department of Homeland Security, nationals of Chad had the highest overstay rate, at 49.5 percent of those arriving in the US on a visa. Others with high overstay rates were Equatorial Guinea (22 percent), Eritrea (20 percent) and Yemen (19.8 percent). On his first day in office, Trump signed an executive order, calling on his state department to identify countries 'for which vetting and screening information is so deficient as to warrant a partial or full suspension on the admission of nationals from those countries'. He referred to this order in his video announcement of the travel ban. The travel ban will take effect on June 9 at 12:01am EDT (04:01 GMT). Yes, Trump enacted a travel ban – dubbed the 'Muslim ban' as all but one of the countries on the list at that time were Muslim-majority – during his first term in 2017. In his Wednesday Truth Social video, Trump said: 'In my first term, my powerful travel restrictions were one of our most successful policies and they were a key part of preventing major foreign terror attacks on American soil.' That earlier ban went through several revisions. It was upheld by the US Supreme Court in 2018. In 2021, Biden repealed this ban, calling it 'a stain on our national conscience'. Yes. In his Truth Social video announcement, Trump said 'the list is subject to revision based on whether material improvements are made. 'Likewise, new countries can be added as threats emerge around the world.' Dahir Hassan Abdi, the Somali ambassador to the US, said in a statement that Somalia is ready to work with the US. 'Somalia values its longstanding relationship with the United States and stands ready to engage in dialogue to address the concerns raised,' he said. Trump's proclamation described Somalia as 'a terrorist safe haven' and stated: 'Somalia lacks a competent or cooperative central authority for issuing passports or civil documents and it does not have appropriate screening and vetting measures.' Diosdado Cabello, Venezuelan interior minister and close aide of President Nicolas Maduro, said: 'The truth is being in the United States is a big risk for anybody, not just for Venezuelans … They persecute our countrymen, our people for no reason.' Trump's proclamation stated: 'Venezuela has historically refused to accept back its removable nationals.'
